


The Spirit of the Renegade

by Ultima_Thule



Category: Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Uprising
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Canon-Typical Violence, Everything Hurts, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Insanity, Not Happy, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, i'm gonna add TW and CW in beginning of chapter notes as i go, it's the tron fandom who are we kidding, not crack, okay there is some fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 33
Words: 52,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24124567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultima_Thule/pseuds/Ultima_Thule
Summary: Before Beck, there was Cyrus.The uprising is much older than Clu would have you think.
Relationships: Able & Tron (Tron), Clu (Tron) & Tron, Tron & Cyrus (Tron), Tron/Yori (Tron)
Comments: 81
Kudos: 45





	1. When All Was New

PART 1

The first program to see Flynn’s bright new system had not been the system admin. It was a fact that Able found funny at first, and then darkly ironic. No, Clu wasn’t the first. That honor had been Tron’s. His code was reconfigured to fit with the new system. During this reconfiguration, Tron not only gained a second User through Kevin Flynn, he gained a secondary directive. He accepted this directive, vowing to fight for the Grid, and protect it from all evils.

  
After Tron came Yori, a creative and talented simulation program, and Tron’s counterpart. Then there was a program Able had never heard of before, named Ram.

Apparently, Ram had been deleted on the old system, under the MCP. Flynn used his power to rerez him, to the surprise and delight of both Tron and Yori.

 _Then_ Clu was created.

The Grid's population grew and grew. Able was among the first wave, brought over from Encom’s discontinued data recovery service—according to Flynn, some other User organization was doing it better, and Encom wanted to completely overhaul the design. “So, we’re moving you and your team here for now!” Flynn explained. “Nothing personal.” Nothing personal. There was a phrase Flynn used a lot.

In the beginning, when all was new, Able and Yori manned their post near the portal as Flynn transported program after program into the New Frontier. Some programs came through misconfigured or broken, missing clothes or batons or other vital data. Between Yori’s simulation skills, Able’s data recovery skills, and Flynn’s User powers, the new programs were usually made perfect again.

In the beginning, all was bright. Every cycle sparkled with possibility, and the invisible limits of the sky seemed within reach. No one could have imagined the darkness lurking just over the horizon.


	2. Cyrus Enters the Grid

Able and Yori stood by the Portal, awaiting the new influx of programs. Flynn grinned, blue eyes twinkling. He raised his radio, and pinged Tron. “Hey, buddy. Hope you’re not far from the portal. Got a few special newcomers today, think you’re gonna wanna meet them.”

“What are you planning, Flynn?” Yori asked.

“Yeah, who are these special newcomers?” Able added.

Flynn chuckled. “You’ll see.”

Presently, Able saw the bright blur of Tron’s lightcycle cutting through the darkness below them. The vehicle roared up to the portal’s ridge, and derezzed midair.

Tron landed lightly and sprinted over to the trio, already asking questions. “What is it, Flynn? Yori, Able, do you know anything about this?”

“As is usually the case with Flynn, we know nothing,” Able told him, crossing his arms.

Yori and Tron clasped hands as Flynn began to speak. “Well, as you all know, there’s a lot of new faces on the Grid. 3,099 as of today, in fact. It’s great! Wonderful. However, with all these new programs, and the cities springing up… the Grid is growing. And with growth comes growing pains.”

“Growing pains?” Tron asked.

“In other news, over in the real world, Encom’s getting rid of their old security system. Putting a new one in place. Kinda like what happened with you, way back in the day!"

"Hm."

"That means, everyone’s gotta go, and I’m bringing them here.”

“You’re bringing Encom’s other security programs _here_?” Tron asked, skeptically, raising his eyebrows.

“Yup, all 800 of them!”

Tron’s expression twisted in concern. “Why would we need so many? Is the Grid in danger? Is there a threat I was not aware—”

“No!” Flynn laughed. “No threat, none yet, at least. But c’mon, man! The numbers are gonna rise by the cycle. It’s gonna be too much work for one program to handle. I know in the old system, you ran independently. You were different than the others. It made you stronger. _Better_.”

“It made it harder for the MCP to learn my tactics,” Tron corrected.

“Whatever, man—point is, I don’t think it’s fair you had to fight alone just because you were better. The Grid needs a team. An elite fighting force to keep her safe, huh? How ’bout that? And who better to lead that team, train it, than you? Best of the best! Huh? What do you say? C’mon, it’ll be great.”

Able raised his eyebrows, and exchanged glances with Yori. It was a great responsibility to spring on someone so suddenly.

“I…” Tron began, pulling away from Yori. “Undoubtedly, a greater number of well-trained security programs would improve the Grid’s safety, but… I am programmed to independently monitor and quarantine threats. Delegation and mentorship are not my strengths.”

“Aw, c’mon!” Flynn waved his hand. “You’ll be great!”

Tron crossed his arms.

“I’m pretty good at delegation,” Yori said, inching her hand back into Tron’s with a sly smile. “I could teach you a few tricks.”

“Mentorship will come with time,” Able said. “Heck, it was part of my directive, and it took me a few cycles to get the hang of it! You’ll catch on. Don’t worry. Yori, Clu, Flynn and I got your back.”

“Whaddya say, Tron?” Flynn asked.

“It is a great responsibility,” Tron replied. “We will have to make careful plans before bringing them in—their way of life is about to change drastically, and—”

“So that’s a yes?” Flynn exclaimed, exultantly.

Tron sighed, glaring at Flynn. “ _Yes_ , but—”

“Hey! I knew you’d come ’round. Is the portal clear, Yori?”

“All clear,” Yori said, glancing over at the screen.

“Radical! You all know the drill. In a few moments, the new guys should be coming into the system, ready to kick some gridbug butt.”

“A few _moments_?” Tron asked.

Flynn laughed, smacking Tron’s shoulder, and ran into the portal. “Let’s do this!”

As Flynn disappeared, the trio of programs was left blinking after him.

Yori was the first one to speak. “Head of security, huh?” She grinned as she shifted the controls on the laser portal. “Has a nice ring to it.”

“Yeah, well, I really wish he’d _discuss_ all these grand ideas with us before bringing them to life,” Tron grumbled. “Those programs are gonna be coming down the pipe any nanosecond, and I’ve gotta come up with a training regimen, a surveillance strategy involving multiple parties, a communication system, a threat quarantine strategy—”

“It’ll be fine, Tron,” Able said. “You’ve trained Betas before, back in the old system.”

“Mm.”

“Besides, it’s not like you have to come up with it _right now_ ,” Yori laughed. “Remember how dazed we were after transfer?”

“Took me a whole microcycle before I could remember where my feet were!” Able cried.

“Mm.”

“Right!” Yori continued. “Those security programs will need time to rest and recover from whatever reconfigurations Flynn’s giving them. That gives you plenty of time to prepare. You’ll be great.”

Tron crossed his arms, about to fire off another remark about Flynn, when Yori’s control panel began beeping.

“Here comes the first one! Designation CYRUS-VDK-901009. A virus detection kit.”

“Hm,” Tron said. “I remember meeting some of those virus-fighting programs. Good soldiers, a little naïve. Barely out of beta when we were transferred.”

“Well, I’m sure this one will be glad to see a familiar face,” Able said.

“Here he comes! Stand by!” Yori ordered.

A different sort of light began to shine in the sky, yellow, dimmer than the strong beam that Flynn rode in and out of the Grid. Something about the program transfer light was unsettling, Able thought. Maybe it was just bad memories. Program transferring was a process the MCP created to teleport programs from distant systems into the game grid. It was a dangerous process, still was, even with the upgrades Flynn made to try and smooth things out. Sometimes, it ended ugly. Really ugly.

“Hope this one doesn’t end up with a leg where its head should be,” Able muttered as the yellow beam pulsed downward, and CYRUS-VDK-901009’s code frame began to flash into place on the platform.

The Grid had lost eleven programs to the process already. He and Yori had rushed to save them, done everything they could. These cases were so scrambled by the reconfigurations, scrambled and screaming, derezzing them was the more merciful choice.

Cyrus was nearly there. His circuits were in view, V-shaped identifier gleaming strong. That was a good sign, but it wasn’t everything.

Sometimes, programs made it through the transfer process, but derezzed soon afterwards. These had instabilities deep within their code, hidden cracks and vulnerabilities caused by their inexperienced or careless User. It chilled Able’s soul, watching a program who looked outwardly perfect suddenly crumple, their bright circuits flickering and surging, excess energy and voxels burning up through their mouth and eyes, through their circuits, singing their suit and burning them away into nothing.

There was nothing he or Yori could do in this case, except place them in standby, and wait for Flynn to re-enter the system. He always returned when this happened, eyes wide with worry, barely waiting for the blue portal to close before he was careening over to the broken program, muttering strange phrases under his breath. Usually, Flynn could fix it. Usually. Sometimes, they lost a program. And Able and Yori would be upset, and Tron and Clu would be upset, but Flynn urged them to move ahead, focus on the ones that still lived.

The yellow light grew dim, and Cyrus stood, fully formed, on the platform.

He stumbled forward. In a flash, Able rushed to the platform, and caught him before he fell. “Hey now, you’re all right. Made it through transfer.”

Cyrus’s head rolled sideways. “What…” His eyes snapped open, wide, afraid. “Where am I?”

“You’re on the Grid,” Yori said. “The new system. Welcome.”

Cyrus blinked, staring at his hands. “Neither one's on backwards… that's something…” He squinted past Able and Yori. “ _Tron_.”

Tron ran to the platform, dropped to one knee, and clapped a hand on the new program’s shoulder. “CYRUS-VDK-901009. You are here to help me defend the new system from danger. It’s good to meet you.”

The new program blinked, nodded.

“Hey now, Tron, he just got here!” Able laughed. "Try not to overwhelm the kid."

“Get him some energy,” Yori said.

Able nodded. “You got it.”

“Cyrus, you are the first of 800 security programs I will train to defend this system,” Tron said, unable to bite back a gigantic smile of enthusiasm. All his worries began to fade. Flynn, in his high-level User wisdom, had made the right decision. This would be very good for the system. He could hardly wait to start. “Can you stand, program?”

“I—I think so—” Cyrus said.

“Hold up,” Able said, pushing past Tron with a glass of energy. “Energy first, training later. Drink this.”

Cyrus took the glass with a grateful smile.

There was a low beeping from Yori’s panel again. “Get him off the platform,” she said. “Another one’s coming through.”

Tron pulled Cyrus to his feet, and away from the platform.

As Able braced himself for the next program transfer, he turned to Tron. “I'll send the new ones into the mesa, down below. You get them used to the ergonomics of the new place." Cyrus looked okay so far, but there was always a chance the next transfer would go south, and Cyrus would have to be a little steadier on his feet before he could handle a scene like that.

Tron nodded, and guided the unsteady Cyrus away from the platform. “All right, Cyrus. Let’s run some diagnostic exercises.”

“Yes, sir,” Cyrus said, trying to stand up on his own. It seemed the more he tried to find his balance, the further it ran from him. “Tron… defeater of the MCP… It’s an honor.” He stumbled sideways, nearly taking Tron down with him.

“Well, you ought to know," Tron said, catching the new program before he collapsed, "I defeated the MCP with a good deal of help." He smiled back at Yori, and thought of Flynn and Ram. "I couldn’t have done it alone.”


	3. Responsibilities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Able does not mind the long ride to the security center each cycle. He doesn't even mind third wheeling Tron and Yori the entire visit. What he does mind are a bunch of Betas with no respect for lightcycles.

Able visited the security training center often during the early cycles. Tron’s security force was coming together nicely, but most of them were Betas, or just barely out of Beta, and none of them were particularly easy on their lightcycles. They took the tricks Tron taught them and dialed them up to eleven. He’d no sooner teach them how to vault from one strip of road to the next before they were vaulting over piles of junk data, trying to turn flips on the thing. He’d no sooner teach them how to drive the vehicle one handed, leaving the other hand free to wield a disc, then they were zooming all over the Outlands, doing doughtnuts one-handed, no-handed, slicing up the terrain with their discs, crashing into each other.

This cycle had been no different. As the 800 security programs checked out of the training grounds, Able stood at the back of his vehicle, watching in amusement as the load of broken equipment grew.

“Make sure you put your gear away neatly,” Tron ordered. “ _Neatly means neatly_ , Reeve.”

As the load in Able’s truck grew, and the weight of it began to pull down the carriage, Able’s amusement slowly turned into irritation.

One program carelessly chucked his baton into the truck, but before he could turn around and race out the door, Tron had him by the upper arm. “Where do you think you’re going, MAT-SHV-15141?” Tron said, pulling him back and fixing him in a blue, laserlike glare. “Our equipment is unparalleled because of Able and his mechanics, and this is how you thank him?”

The program shrugged sullenly.

“Go put it where it belongs.” Tron released the offender with a shake.

Once the last program had waved goodbye and scooted out the door, the rear of Able’s truck was practically touching the ground. He shook his head. Out of the 800 security programs, only 28 had no damage to their gear.

“Man, these trainees of yours,” Able said. “They go through ’cycles like a codeworm through brains.”

Tron sighed, narrowing his eyes at the overloaded truck.

The door to the interior of the security building unlatched with a click, and a small program charged through. Tron turned, and his entire demeanor lightened in an instant.

It was always a pleasant surprise when Yori came to visit the security center. Able found few things more amusing than watching the stern, serious head of security melt into a puddle of happiness whenever she came through the door. It did a program good to see it.

“Hello, Tron,” she said, and kissed him as he wrapped his arms around her. “Hi, Able.”

“Greetings,” Able said.

“What business brings you down here?” Tron asked.

“You,” Yori said, and poked Tron in the shoulder.

His circuitry turned pink beneath her touch, and he laughed as the warm color rippled all through his system.

Yori grinned, pleased with herself. “What are you fine programs up to?”

“Just loading up all the broken equipment of the last cycle,” Able said. “No rest for the wicked. Tron’s team is bad news for lightcycles.”

Yori looked at Tron in mock disapproval. “You being a bad influence?”

“ _None_ of these shenanigans happen when I am watching directly,” Tron protested. “I keep the team in line on the job. I can’t control what they do on their off hours—I won’t, for that matter. It isn’t my place.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Still, so long as the programs aren’t injuring themselves, I have few concerns. They are learning new skills, solidifying old ones, and building camaraderie. However, Clu doesn’t like it. He sees it as a danger and a waste of data.”

“Clu be damned,” Able cried. “ _I_ don’t like it! These kids gotta treat these vehicles with some respect!” Able attempted to rez up one of the broken lightcycles. Only half of it rezzed, and that half was so bent out of shape, one could hardly tell what the thing was supposed to be. It crumbled into three pieces at Able’s feet. “Just look at this. Shameful. That’s what this is. We gotta teach them the value of their equipment.”

“Hmm.” Tron rubbed his chin. “What do you suppose we do about it? I’ve lectured them a million times. Nothing seems to be sticking.”

“No.”

“I know, you could teach a class on it. Maybe they’d listen to you!”

“Ha!” Able shook his head. “800 little security programs. All they wanna do is perform lightcycle flips and blow up gridbugs. And you think they’re gonna sit still and listen to this old coot jabber about proper bike maintenance?”

“Well, I’m sure if anyone could think of a way to make it… _entertaining_ in some way, it would be you!” Tron replied.

Able snorted. “Should I be flattered or offended?”

“I know what you could do,” Yori said, and began poking the four squares in Tron’s insignia one by one.

He flinched, trying not to laugh.

“What would that be, Yori?” Able asked, pointedly ignoring the poking.

“You could do apprenticeships!”

“Okay, you—” Tron clasped Yori’s hands and held them at a safe distance.

“Apprenticeships,” Able repeated, rubbing his chin. “Huh.”

“What is… _apprenticeships_?” Tron asked, narrowing his eyes.

“It’s a User word,” Yori beamed. “Means learning a skill or trade by working under someone who knows that skill inside and out.”

“I do know my way around a corrupted vehicle,” Able mused. “Managed to fix Clu’s recognizer when it went on the fritz. Ha!”

Yori burst into laughter. “ _Yes_! What was the matter with it?”

“Its navigation system was whacked. Every time Clu tried to accelerate, it would just spin in place. Real slow, real deliberate, like it was doing it on purpose. It was a sight to see.”

“Sight to see?” Yori exclaimed. “It was even better to hear. Clu just kept screaming at the recognizer to stop. You know, like it could understand Basic? _Stop this! Stop this nonsense at once_! Then he started yelling at Flynn. _Flynn! Flyyynnnn! Stop this outrage_! Dignified Sysadmin, just screaming like he was being derezzed or something!”

Tron, who had been gazing seriously out the window through this entire conversation, whipped around towards the others, his eyes bright. “Yori, this _apprenticeships_ is an ingenious idea,” he said. “I’ve got to go over the details with you, Able—and Clu, too—to make sure the shift to apprenticeships does not impact the Grid’s security, or your ability to serve your other clients. Since they’ll likely be only working on their own equipment, the overhead should be minimal.”

Yori beamed again.

Able crossed his arms. “When will we start this program?”

“This time next cycle,” Tron said. “My team will go home, rest up, and report directly to your store. Then, instead of picking up their equipment and going to the outlands to trash it up as usual, they’ll help fix it.”

“Fix it.” Able scratched the back of his neck. “Huh, I just don’t know how well that’s gonna work. They’re soldiers, not mechanics.”

Tron and Yori exchanged a glance—Tron searching for confirmation, and finding it in her knowing smile.

“What? What did you two lovebirds come up with?” Able asked.

“It’s likely none of them will be able to fully _fix_ their equipment,” Tron said. “It isn’t in their programming.”

“But your aim is not to make mechanics out of soldiers,” Yori rejoined.

“Aha.” Able nodded. “I see. After they spend a millicycle in my garage, they’ll have more respect for us hardworking mechanics, and they won’t be wanting to get sent back there any time soon. Huh. Smart. It just might work.”

“Only one way to find out,” Yori said. She wrapped her arm around Tron. “Now. C’mon, you. You’ve been running for a cycle and a half. It’s time to go home.”

Tron regarded her with wistful eyes. “I have not yet completed the millicycle’s scan of Sector 20.”

“I have completed the millicycle’s scan of Sector Tron,” Yori said. “You’re overdue for a power-down.”

“How can you tell?” Tron asked, seriously. “You’re not a medic.”

“I’ve known you for 362 cycles, program. I’ve learned the signs.”

“In my experience,” Able said, crossing his arms, “Yori is always right.” He raised his eyebrows.

“Okay,” Tron relented. “Let’s go home.”

“Fly me there, will you?” Yori grinned.

Tron leaned down, and tapped her on the nose. “It would be my honor.”

A little thrill of pink ran over her, and she giggled as she ran outside, onto the platform.

Tron clasped his hands and turned back to Able. “I apologize for the damage my team has caused, Able. I accept full responsibility and will talk to Clu about apprenticeships within the next hundred millicycles.”

“Yeah, well, I think you better scoot within the next milli _second_ ,” Able said.

Tron smiled, and sprinted out the door after Yori.

“Yeah, and a restful micro to you, too.” Able shook his head, slammed the back door shut, and climbed into the driver’s seat. “Ya know, the Grid is sure lucky to have those two protecting it,” he mused to no one in particular.

 _YES,_ beeped a ringing, digital voice from the back seat.

“Hey, hey!” Able laughed, as the Bit flew over to his shoulder. “I wondered where you’d got off to. You ready to go home?”

 _YES_.

“Let’s get outta here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Tron and Yori fluff is gonna get me through corona time.


	4. Waiting Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There aren't a whole lot of things on the Grid right now that spark Clu's joy. Not the strange and chaotic ISOs, not the gridbug explosions that are undoubtedly the ISOs' fault, not Tron's idealistic insistence that everyone on the Grid could live in harmony, and certainly not Flynn's attitude about the whole situation.  
> It's all gotta come to a head.  
> But that doesn't mean he can't have a little fun in the process.

There was a wrinkle in the equation.

More subtle than the ISOs, more interesting than the gridbugs. Disquieting as the growing civil unrest, unsettling as Flynn’s growing distance.

Clu stood at the window, watching the security team train. They respected Tron. All of them. This was good. It was imperative that a fighting force respected and obeyed their leader.

All it needed was a simple change of variable.

There was a wrinkle in the equation.

A variable…

Clu leaned forward.

800 programs stood still, focused on their leader, their leader and mentor, who was skilled and powerful and qualified in so many ways.

A shame, really.

No matter. Ideology could be reshaped. Misplaced loyalties could be corrected.

There was a wrinkle in the equation.

From the front of the field, Tron called forward a member of the security team. A younger program, a virus detection kit by the looks of his shoulder markings. Tron stepped back, directing the others’ attention to the younger program.

Clu pressed his hands to the glass, reached out into the network of the Grid, grinning as the blocks slipped open, powerless before the raw, privileged strength of his query. He accessed the young program’s file.

_Program: CYRUS-VDK-901009_

_Role: Security Officer_

“Cyrus, huh?” Clu smiled down from his great height. “Nice to meet you, Cyrus.”

Down below, Cyrus demonstrated a new move to the others; a feint to the left, a quick dodge to the right, a leg behind your opponent’s knee, and a subtle shift of your weight that landed them flat on the ground.

Tron watched with a critical gaze, and then—pride. Clu recognized it in the line of his shoulders. Tron was proud of this young one, this _Cyrus_.

There was a wrinkle in the equation.

Tron stepped back to the front of the team and began to give orders to the rest, taking no more notice of Cyrus.

Cyrus, however, continued to watch Tron in rapt attention, eyes full of admiration.

Clu’s forehead _wrinkled_.

His loyalty was different than the rest. How?

Clu pursed his lips, scratched his head.

Why?

The 800 programs split up into pairs, and Tron stalked from pair to pair, watching sharply and interjecting with corrections.

“Hey, Grid,” Clu thought, and felt an answering rush to his system. “Hey. How’s it going. Get me all the information you’ve got on Program Designation CYRUS-VDK-901009.”

Below, on the field, Tron held up his disc, and the security force, like one perfect, beautiful organism, changed partners.

“Second security program to arrive on the Grid,” Clu muttered. “Second only to Tron himself. Heh. Radical.”

There was a wrinkle in the equation, but it wouldn’t be a problem. Wrinkles could be twisted, integrated, rectified, just not in the usual way. Wrinkles could be played with. Wrinkles could be _fun_.

“We’ll have fun, won’t we, Cyrus?” Clu smiled as he took one last look at the fighting force down below, then retired to check the software upgrade calendar. Tron’s team was due very soon for an upgrade, and Clu had something extra in mind for a certain CYRUS-VDK-901009.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up, Programs.


	5. Nerves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cyrus worries about his new job, and tries to play jai alai with his ISO friend. You'd think that would be an easy thing to do.

Cyrus got nervous a lot.

He got nervous every time he went out on a mission.

He got nervous about going into sleep mode.

He got nervous every time he spotted that one purple-circuited word processor at the End of Line club.

Users, he’d been nervous from the very first moment he entered the Grid. Well, no, that had been more like abject terror, but it had quickly faded to the usual, bearable nervousness when he realized Tron—the defeater of the great and terrible MCP!—was there. When Tron was there, everything felt like it would be okay.

The only place Cyrus didn’t feel nervous was in the arena. Surrounded by programs sparring, doing lightcycle tricks, casually lobbing deactivated discs at each other, Cyrus felt pretty good. Usually. Today, the familiar hum of the arena just wasn’t doing it.

“Yo, Cy!” cried a familiar voice.

Cyrus turned and saw Diffie, one of his ISO friends, coming towards him. He pushed his nerves aside with a smile. “Hey, Diffie. You up for getting your butt kicked in jai alai?”

“Not if I kick yours first!”

“Well, it looks like we’re gonna have to wait, there’s three pairs in line.”

“Let’s go get in line, then.”

The two programs walked over to the northern end of the arena, where a pair of programs were tossing a globe of raw, unfiltered energy back and forth.

“So what's up, Cyrus?” the ISO asked. “You seem nervous about something.”

Cyrus smiled. “I am.”

“Yeah, you are.” Diffie put their hands on their hips. “So. What’s up? Did that purple program _look_ at you again?”

“Shut up.”

“Oh! You just pinked out!”

“Did not—”

“Did! For a second! You got all pink! I saw it!”

“Whatever, buddy.”

Diffie grinned, nodding. “Okay. All right, yeah, there's something more. Something beyond... certain purple-circuited programs...”

The programs in the jai alai field finished their game, and Cyrus pushed the grinning ISO forward as the line moved up.

“Cy _rus_ ,” Diffie said. “Cy. Cyrus. CYRUS-VDK-90909090—”

“That isn’t my identification, and you know it.”

“Yeah, yeah, you Basics and your ridiculous, long—” He sputtered, fumbling for adjectives. “ _Ridiculous_ names.”

“Yeah, and you ISOs have short names so you don’t forget them.”

“Oh!” Diffie clutched their chest. “You got me there!” They laughed. “Fine, if you don’t wanna tell me, you don’t wanna tell me! I get it! I’m just your friend, your good friend, your—wait, Cy—is—is it because I’m an ISO?”

“No!” Cyrus exclaimed, but Diffie was already running with it.

“It _is_! It is, it’s because I’m an ISO, and because I’m an unstable anomaly, and unnatural, and yadda-yadda-yadda, and that’s—” Diffie clapped their hands to their face. “ _That’s_ why you won’t tell me! Alas, I knew the day would come when this beautiful friendship would crumble—”

“I’ll tell you if you shut up,” Cyrus said.

Diffie shut up.

Cyrus sighed.

Diffie hummed urgently, raising his eyebrows.

“I…” Cyrus ducked his head. “I got a promotion.”

“Mmm!” Diffie hummed. “Mmm mm, _mm_ —Nope, nope, I’m sorry Cyrus, I can’t do it, I can’t stay shut up— _a promotion_? That’s fantastic, that’s _awesome_. What is it?”

“Special duty… I’m… a sentry now.” Cyrus cleared his throat. “For the Sysadmin.”

Diffie’s eyes widened. “ _For Clu_?”

Cyrus nodded, slowly at first, and then more quickly as his panic began to rise. He shrugged with a smile that would have fooled any Basic. “I mean—I don’t think I’m ready for it, but… Clu said… and Tron agreed… so.” He shrugged again. “Here I am. Cyrus the Sentry.”

“Hmm.” For a moment, Diffie seemed to be gazing right through Cyrus. A strange expression passed over their face, but it was quickly replaced with a smile. Diffie clapped Cyrus on the back. “You, CYRUS-VDK-90909090, are going to make a very good sentry."

“You really think so?” Cyrus asked, his fears weakening in the face of such bright confidence.

“Program, I _know so_.” Diffie began to move their head back and forth to a beat only they could hear. “I know so. I’m an ISO. I know so. I’m an ISO—hey, that’s a pretty good beat, huh?”

Cyrus laughed as his nerves finally relaxed. He was glad Diffie still came to the arena; one of the few ISOs who bothered to do so. Cyrus looked around the vast enclosure, new tendrils of fear gripping him. There were hardly any ISOs out on the streets anymore. The unrest had gotten pretty bad. There were a lot of Basics out there who truly hated the ISOs.

He shivered, trying to calm his fears before Diffie intuited his thoughts from the silence. The last thing he wanted to talk about with his friend was the frightening number of sentries who were decidedly anti-ISO.

“Cy!” Diffie cried. “It’s our turn!” They ran up onto the court, meeting the derisive eyes of the programs leaving the court with a winning smile. The smile never faded, even as the programs whispered something about ISOs under their breath.

Cyrus stopped in his tracks, and swung around to face the departing programs. "What did you just say?"

"Cy, c'mon," Diffie said.

"Said I didn't realize they still let ISO freaks in here," said one of the programs, and his friend laughed.

Cyrus moved closer to the others. "That _ISO freak's_ got a name. If I were you, I'd learn to use it."

"Cy. Let's just play, who cares?"

The other programs laughed. "Oh, you're gonna defend his honor now? That's cute."

"Cyrus, it isn't worth it," Diffie hissed, clapping a hand against Cyrus' shoulder. "You want us both to get thrown out? Huh? C'mon, who cares what they say? Walk away."

Diffie was right. 

Cyrus forced himself to relax, to mirror the mocking smiles of the others, and shrugged away from Diffie's hand. "You're right, Diffie. Who cares what a bunch of low-rez bitbrains say?"

"Yeah, that's it. Let's play." 

Cyrus followed him and took his cesta from the starting wall, blocking out the degrading hoots from the programs outside the ring. 

As he moved towards his position, a moderator program moved onto the court, lighting up the circuitry red all along the border. "I'm sorry, programs, but you can't play here."

"What?" Cyrus cried, stepping up to the moderator. "What do you mean?"

"Instigating violence through verbal threats is not permitted," the mod said. "Please, leave the court, or you will be escorted."

Cyrus flicked a glance at the two programs beyond the ring. "Yeah!" one called out, clapping. "Get that ISO trash _outta here_!"

"Oh, c'mon." Cyrus grinned, dropping his voice. "Just a bit of friendly competition, that's all—"

"I've asked twice." The mod's face was impassive behind her protective visor. "This is your final warning. Leave the court now, or be escorted out, with entry permissions docked for a cycle."

"We did nothing," Cyrus said. 

The mod pressed an unseen button on the side of her helmet. "Geo, we got a violation on Court 2. Blacklist the following programs' discs--"

"Hey, okay, okay!" Cyrus held up his hands. "We're leaving, don't worry. We're leaving."

And they did leave, walking under the rain of whispered jokes and shouted slurs; Diffie smiling broadly, eyes a little too bright; Cyrus holding his head high, glaring straight ahead.

"We're never going back," Diffie said. "Bunch of jerks. Who needs them? Who needs their stupid stadium?"

"I agree," Cyrus replied. "They are jerks, all of them. But we can't stop just because they make us feel unwelcome. The second we stop, they've won. We can't let them get to us."

"Hmm." Diffie nodded, then grinned. "Good point, Cy. We go until they throw us into prison. Deal?"

"Deal."

They shook on it.

As they left the stadium, Cyrus' thoughts returned to his new job. Hatred for ISOs was even more blatant at Clu's sentry training than in the public stadium. Once his fellow sentries got wind of this, Cyrus would never hear the end of it. He might even lose his job.

It didn't matter.

It _did not_ matter. They could say whatever they wanted to say. Diffie was his best friend. He'd stand up for the ISOs against anyone, even Clu.

It was what Tron would do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to you if you can guess who Diffie is named after.


	6. Covert Code

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clu is the only one on the Grid who understands you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet.

Clu paced in the dim silence of his chamber, the sound and communication from the noisy city all around muffled by a near-impenetrable firewall.

Clu knew where things stood with Flynn. Programs had been spoken to, understandings had been established, events were underway.

Flynn was so distracted—so utterly in denial—that it would be easy taking care of him. What would not be so easy was a certain ISO-loving, user-believing security program who had taken it upon himself to stick close by Flynn’s side every time the false deity decided to take a jaunt to the Grid.

Clu had plenty of strong programs on his side. It would be simple, killing Tron, but that… That would be an imperfect solution. His usefulness far outweighed his corruption. He was powerful, resolute, logical, courageous. _Creative_.

Yes, _creative_. Everyone thought of Flynn as the Grid’s great creative genius. Flynn, who dubbed himself “the Creator”. Flynn, the great sham who called himself a deity and had cobbled the Grid together off the copied art of a thousand other users. Programs by the gigabyte applauded and screamed at Flynn’s antics, while Tron’s creativity remained overlooked.

It wasn’t raw and wild and colorful, often crashing in magnificent failure like Flynn’s. It didn’t seek attention.

It was practical, intricate, thoughtful.

It was in the way he generated a million fighting patterns for his team, and still managed to think of a new twist each time they went against him to keep them on their toes.

It was in the way he remained five steps ahead of the viruses and corrupted programs, guessing at their strategies, resolving vulnerabilities in the system far in advance.

It was in the way he used the system’s physics to perform seemingly impossible stunts in a chase through the city.

It was in the way he fought a pack of gridbugs, elegant and deadly, every unplanned, instinctive movement as precise as though it had a billion careful calculations behind it.

Tron’s creativity was understated and dark, but undeniably beautiful.

He understood the system on a deep and thorough level, and saw connections where most programs—admittedly even Clu—could not.

And this was the reason Clu couldn’t afford to destroy him. Such a beautiful cache of potential—it was just what Clu needed. Tron simply had to be reshaped—broken in. He had to be turned against his ideology from the inside. He was resistant to outside pressure; Clu had seen enough programs’ memories from the MCP era to know that. If Tron could be changed, he would have to—at least partially—believe it was through his own independent choice.

Imperfect things had to be broken before they could become perfect. Why couldn’t Flynn and the others just get their mind around that?

Clu sighed and cracked his knuckles. Turning away from the glittering city view below, he went to the scheduling screen. Black gloss awoke to eager, golden data at the flick of his hand.

From Tron’s fighting force, he had chosen four sentries.

Four for their skill, for their loyalty.

He’d given them the necessary code upgrades, to access privileged data. It went like a rush of energy to the heads of most programs, that privilege, but Tron’s soldiers took it surprisingly well. The older security program had trained them in mind as well as in body.

Clu pressed and held a nondescript, gold square near the top of the screen. A few moments later, he’d accessed the hidden files of his own sentries’ data.

The code that offered them semi-admin level authority into the more secret parts of the Grid was a one-way mirror. They could see into the Grid, unaware that Clu could see back into them, analyze their code, adjust it at will. Users had terms and conditions for this sort of thing.

A flick and another tap brought up four boxes onto the screen.

_VER_ _DYN_

 _MIL_ _CYR_

Clu pursed his lips. The first three had been given a standard logic bomb, but the last…

Imperfect things had to be broken before they could become perfect; Clu knew that. He also knew that not all imperfect things broke into perfection the same way. Utter annihilation was very rarely the way.

Some things only needed slight twists before they went running—screaming—back onto the right track.

Other things needed to be shattered in the right places.

Friends.

Beliefs.

Self-assurance.

Now, Cyrus was just another soldier. Tron valued all his soldiers, but under the right circumstances, Cyrus could easily become something more. An apprentice. A protégé in which Tron saw his younger self reflected.

Build the reflection, shatter it from the inside, and the Grid’s most beautiful weapon would deliver itself to Clu’s door; crushed, devastated, _perfect._

Clu tapped the tab labeled _CYR_.

Some things could only be perfected through utter annihilation. Gridbugs. Viruses. ISOs, though he hadn’t admitted that directly to anyone just yet.

Perfection achieved through utter destruction. Blank slate. Starting anew without all the things that messed it up. _Tabula rasa_. Wouldn’t it be nice to _start over_?

“Perfection—freedom—achieved only through utter destruction,” Clu muttered, navigating back to the main screen _._ “Not bad, Clu. Not bad.” Chuckling, he held both hands down against the screen.

There was silence for a moment, deep, almost an anti-sound, as the Grid opened the hidden channels to the four sentries’ update drivers, powerless against his wishes. The anti-sound rumbled, infinitesimal, reaching. And then—

“Covert updates pushed,” the Grid whispered, in a voice Clu alone could hear. “Changes will take effect automatically, at the start of the next cycle.”

Clu nodded, and brought his hands down from the screen. “Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Freakin' Clu.  
> He gets a lot of things wrong, but he also gets a lot of things right. Unfortunately.


	7. Stress Fractures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tron and Yori's relationship is rock solid. But any rock, put under enough pressure, is bound to crumble a little.

It all happened so fast.

A standoff between the ISOs and Basics.

An order to enter the seething, pressurized area without discs.

A mysterious disc slicing through the air, impacting Dyson’s cheek with a shattering crash, and in the break, all the raging, terrible things that Tron had fought to prevent with all his being came exploding, screaming, into horrible reality.

There was a riot. Both sides suffered great loss. Yes, both sides. Because there really were two sides now, weren’t there? The Grid was fractured. Unity still slipped beyond reach. He was failing Flynn. He was failing the Grid. He was failing…

Tron reached the door of his dwelling and slipped into the main room, and she was there to meet him, brilliant and strong, ready to ask him all the questions he was too tired to answer, ready to try and make it better.

_No!_

It was not her responsibility, it was not her darkness. He could fix things. He could. He wouldn’t drag her into the darkness with him.

She wrapped her arms around him, feeling the tension stretching, stretching every fiber of his being, feeling the nauseating anxiety pounding through him. How heavy his responsibility had become. She longed to help, fight in his place, _anything_ to lighten it somehow. But she hardly held a byte of combat ability in her programming, and all he ever asked of her was her presence and trust. She wouldn’t have time, anyway. She was busy strengthening the infrastructure of the Grid, and keeping the laser port operational. She could not remember a cycle grueling as this one had been. Still, she put off the complaints she had about her own work, and asked him the questions that had killed her for the entire lonely cycle.

How are you?

How is your team?

I heard about the riot with the ISOs—that’s just terrible.

Is that a—let me see your arm—how long have you had this injury?

What is going on with Clu?

What does Flynn have to say about this?

Ram’s been asking about you; have you talked to him recently?

When’s the last time you ate?

When’s the last time you _slept_?

He answered the questions as well as he could, forcing words through the heavy fog of fatigue and dread that filled his head and made his throat ache. He answered, and answered, trying not to snap, all too aware that he was snapping anyway.

Yori went quiet at the ragged intensity in his voice. He was going to fly apart, and scream, and break something. She went quiet, holding on, willing him to just be still and let her help. “You need to rest,” she said, at last.

“I can’t afford that now,” he growled. “Gridbugs are springing up in more horrifying evolutions every millicycle, civil unrest and violence are breaking out in every sector, Clu’s convinced that Flynn is getting ready to abandon the Grid—and I almost think he’s got a point—all the sentries are looking at Flynn like they want to kill him—and we’ve got ISOs just—going missing, completely unaccounted for—and Ophelia wants an account, let me tell you. I’ve got to find them. I’ve got to figure out—and report, in full detail—what happened to them.” He closed his eyes, clenching his jaw. “I’ve got to.”

“Hey!” She moved in front of him, gripping his shoulders, making him face her. “You’ll find them.”

He opened his eyes, weary and clouded.

Yori narrowed her own, peering closer.

His eyes, once so sharp and blue and bright, had faded. When had they faded? How had she missed the change? Maybe it was a trick of the light—

“You’ll find them,” Yori said. “I believe in you. We’ll get through this.”

He sighed, rolling his eyes, pulling away before she could see his expression shatter.

She stepped back, hurt by the perceived dismissal, hating herself for it. She shouldn’t mind. But she did. “Whatever,” she said, and her voice was sharper than she intended.

Tron stared fixedly out the window, his jaw set. _No, Yori…_

Yori stepped back, wishing he would just turn around. “I’m only trying to help.”

He couldn’t face her, couldn’t move. _I didn’t mean it like that._

“But I guess you don’t need me. Fine. That’s fine.” Yori took another step back, trying to stop the bitter words. “You don’t need anyone, you can do everything yourself. I get it.”

_My love, my light, I am so sorry._

Yori took another step back, and another, and all she wanted to do was run to him and push him against the wall and… and… _crush_ the sadness out of him. But the words kept coming, bitter and raging at the fact that he wouldn’t let her in. “You just let me know when you need me, and I’ll come running when you call, like the—like the little _decoration_ I am in your life. Okay?”

She slammed the door and ran away, rezzing her light jet and flying high, out towards the Outlands, faster and faster and faster as though she could outfly her own words.

She hadn’t meant them, not really.

It had been a long, long cycle for both of them.

For everyone, really.

It was okay.

She would return, and apologize, and it would be okay. This turmoil would pass soon, and the whole Grid would look back on it and laugh.

She engaged the lightjet to the fullest of its ability, and soared upwards, as if she could pierce the sky itself.

In the dwelling, Tron crashed to the floor. It was all so heavy, it seemed as if the weight of the air would push him straight down to the center of the Grid.

He should have turned around, but she had said it with such faith— _I believe in you_ —and he couldn’t let her see what he had become. She trusted him, and he could not betray that trust. _I believe in you, you'll find them._ No. He wouldn't find them. He couldn't. They weren't missing.

_I believe in you._

Lots of programs told him that. Why? Couldn’t they see he was failing?

The ISOs were dying. Not missing—dying. Unique entities, Flynn’s hope, Tron’s friends, _living entities_ who warranted his protection, were being murdered. And he had failed to prevent it.

The Grid was seriously infected, with the gridbugs and the violence, and because of it, over a hundred brave security programs this cycle had been derezzed. And he had failed to prevent it.

Flynn didn’t seem to notice… or care…

Clu deeply resented Flynn, and resented Tron as a result. Sometimes the Sysadmin spoke to him with downright murder in his eyes, and Tron didn’t like the way some of Clu’s sentries looked at each other every time he walked by.

He could trust no one. No one.

No one except…

Something locked up in his chest.

_Yori_.

The program who knew him best and would still fight for him if all the Grid collapsed inward on itself. She loved him… so _much_ , and all he ever did lately was push her away.

Tron wrapped his arms around his knees, trying to breathe.

It would be okay.

It would be okay.

It would. She would come back, or he would go seek her out, and he would try to find adequate words to apologize… and maybe one small part of his life could be made right.

Oh, Yori. Knowing he’d hurt her was almost worse than the riot.

He was failing.

But he hadn’t failed yet.

No. Not yet. _This wasn’t the end._ This was just a setback. He could rise. He could handle it. He could fix this. He would fix this.

He would have to, otherwise the future… well, the Grid might not have a future.

Tron pulled himself off the floor, and took a deep breath, pushing everything back down into a cold, heavy, hidden place, deep inside him. Flynn would be here in a few millicycles, and he had to be _alert_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter makes subtle reference to Tron: Betrayal and Tron: Evolution. Tron is friends with an ISO named Jalen. Clu sprinkles his special Clu sauce into Jalen’s code. Sad chaos ensues.


	8. Masks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When one fears the worst, it is generally best to prepare for the worst. This is, at least, how Able and Cyrus operate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, Cyrus uses the term nibble. The term "nibble" is a fantastic pun; a unit of measurement equal to four bits, or half a byte.

It was dark.

The deserted bank was clouded with corrupted data.

Able stood in the shadows, circuitry darkened to deep gray by the masking he wore. He didn’t have the permissions to black it out completely. Programs of strange and undesirable statures drifted past him, and he held his breath, keeping a lookout for a program with a V-shaped identifier. Clu usually forbid his sentries to show their identifiers on their suit, but Able had specifically asked this one to make an exception.

Clu was planning something. Tron suspected it, Yori suspected it; glitch, every program who wasn’t in complete denial suspected it. Something wicked was underway, and all programs unwilling to hold Clu as the greatest power in existence needed to be ready. Able knew they’d need someone on the inside, someone close to Clu. Tron was out of the question—too conspicuous. To Clu, Able figured, Cyrus was just another sentry. Replaceable, easily overlooked, a cog in Clu’s perfect machine.

He was also a rather honorable cog in the machine. Of all his underlings, Tron had always spoke most highly of Cyrus, and Able rather liked the young program. He had taken to his apprenticeship at the garage with unusual enthusiasm and skill, considering he'd been designed for virus detection and little else. 

If things went south with Clu, Cyrus would be a good one to rely on for intel. In fact, he might even—

“Hi, Able,” Cyrus whispered, practically materializing beside him.

“Cyrus!” Able nearly jumped out of his gridsuit. All of Cyrus’ circuitry was masked except his insignia. The V glowed an eerie orange in the fog, looking far too much like the symbol on Clu’s helmet for Able’s liking. _Must be some special sentry masking protocol Clu gave him. Huh._

“Sorry. Users, I’m sorry.” Cyrus’s insignia faded to its original white, and the circuitry around his helmet flickered on. “Uh, I didn’t mean to startle you. I went under deep masking, to ensure I wasn't followed.”

“It’s all right, kid.” Able clenched and unclenched his fists, trying to shake off the surge of panic. “To my knowledge, I was not followed here. Can you scan the area for others?”

“Yeah.” Cyrus looked around, initiating a wide area scan. Able felt it when Cyrus’ gaze swept over him—a uncanny, chilling sensation, not unlike the feeling he got when an ISO looked directly into his eyes. A moment later, when Cyrus turned back to him, the sensation was gone. “All clear, I think.”

“Good.” Able sighed. “I’m sure you’re curious. Why here. Why all this secrecy.”

Cyrus shifted his feet, cracked his knuckles.

“What are your thoughts on your new boss?”

“Clu?” Cyrus asked.

Able raised his eyebrows.

“Hm…” The younger program picked at the edge of his helmet. “I… I worry.”

“You worry.”

“He…”

Able tapped his foot, impatiently, glancing away through the fog at the portal light, burning bright and blue in the distance. Still open. Able sighed. He knew Cyrus pretty well. Though he usually kept quiet, the program had strong opinions on things, and could state these opinions with unusual eloquence, if he had time to get his words in order. But time was the one thing they did not have, and Able didn’t want a perfectly crafted paragraph. He wanted to get on with the plan. “Cyrus—”

“I understand where Clu’s coming from,” Cyrus interrupted, “but I don’t like where he’s going.”

“Uh- _huh_ ,” Able said, and leaned closer. “Explain.”

“The most important thing to any Basic is their directive.” Cyrus’ voice was low and rapid. “Clu’s most interested in one thing: making the system perfect. He’s similar to Tron—following his directive above all else. For you and me, following our directive is a simple thing. You recover damaged or missing data on vehicles. I scan for viruses and guard doors that Clu tells me to guard. Not a lot of room for interpretation. Clu’s and Tron’s directives? They’re grander than that. _Protect the Grid. Perfect the System_. There’s a lot to work with, a lot of different avenues to take.”

“I understand,” Able said, hoping Cyrus would catch the urgency in his voice and _hurry it up_.

“There was—there was something _right_ about fighting under Tron,” Cyrus said. “He carries out his directive through inclusion. He places great value on every living entity, and always— _always—_ acts to benefit the greatest number of programs. He’s not… well, he’s no _chatbot_ , that’s for sure, but he cares about the programs on the Grid. A lot.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Able said, grinning at the image of Tron acting like a chatbot.

“Then there’s Clu. It’s like when he talks to other programs, he doesn’t see… _them_. He sees their code. He sees what they might become, or what they might be _made_ to become, and most of the time, he doesn’t seem to like what he sees. He can’t stand things that are different, and the way he treats the ISOs is appalling. He can’t stand when people cross him, so you can imagine, he and Tron fight constantly. Clu’s amused by cruelty, especially if it’s creative. Some of the stuff he lets Dyson do to prisoners—it’s…” Cyrus shuddered. “Tron would _never_ stand for that. _He_ taught us to be firm. Resolute. But never cruel.”

“Hm.”

“In conclusion,” Cyrus said, and Able breathed a sigh of relief, “I understand where he’s coming from, but I don’t like where he’s going. Not one nibble. Not even one bit.”

“Well, I’m with you,” Able said. “Clu’s been making a lot of programs nervous lately. I’m curious, Cyrus, from the perspective of one so close to the Sysadmin, you think it’s likely he’ll do something… _drastic_?”

“I think… I think it’s very likely, Able,” Cyrus said, and his tone sent a chill skipping across Able’s circuits.

“So does Tron.” Able sighed. “Flynn is on the Grid right now. He calculates that if Clu is going to make his move, it’ll be before that portal closes.”

Cyrus crossed his arms.

“Should worst come to worst, we’ll need a safe place to meet.” Able pulled a map from his utility belt, spread it against the wall, and tapped a point in the northern Outlands regions. “There’s a cave up here. Raw energy source, well hidden within the rocks. Location 0x00A103. Got that?”

“0x00A103,” Cyrus repeated.

“As soon as you can, get to this point. As of now, only four programs know about this place. Tron, Yori, you, and me. That number stays at four. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Able put the map away. “When’s that portal set to close?”

“DeltaTime 2048,” Cyrus said. “We have 1065 microcycles left, at the most.”

“Has Clu given you any suspicious instructions during the next thousand microcycles?”

“No,” Cyrus said. “He actually told me to take this millicycle off. Which is… odd… um…”

“Yeah. That is odd. When are your next orders?”

“Immediately after the portal closes, I’m due for a shift in his base, guarding the east wing of the prison.”

“Hmm.” Able rubbed his chin. “I’d stick close to the area _now_.”

Cyrus nodded, and clasped his hands. “Able, do you… do you think Tron’s right? Think Clu’s gonna do something crazy?”

“I don’t know, kid,” Able said. He clapped his hand against Cyrus’ shoulder. “Keep your head down. Stay alert. Everything might be okay.”

“ _Might_ be.”

“And if things do go screwy, where exactly do you go?”

“0x00A103,” Cyrus said.

“That’s it.” Able rezzed his helmet. “At least one of us will be there. Mask up, kid. Time to keep watch.”

Cyrus nodded. His insignia flickered orange, and then blinked out. “See you soon, Able,” he said. “Hopefully… hopefully not at 0x00A103.”

“Yeah. Later, Cyrus.”

Able waited until Cyrus’s silhouette faded into the distance before stepping cautiously out of the shadows, and heading off in the opposite direction, back towards Argon. There was someone he needed to speak to before paying a visit to Yori.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I changed the location to memory addressing rather than IP addressing. Makes more sense, considering this isn't a networked system.


	9. The Coup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clu brings everyone's worst fears to life.

Clu attacked Flynn.

Flynn ran away.

Tron was derezzed.

These three rumors echoed outward across the Grid like a raging ripple of darkness. Programs ran, screaming into the night. Some broke shop windows and derezzed each other in the streets. Others hid. Recognizers roared across the skies, burning orange, seeking insurgents. The Grid’s order of operation had been inverted, and nothing would ever be the same.

In a deep, underground tunnel, a mechanic and a simulator met and promised each other it would be okay, no matter what the rumors said, it would be okay.

In another deep, underground place, the Grid’s most loyal defender, much too alive for his own liking, watched as every last one of his fellow defenders—trainees—apprentices—were rewritten. Their code, everything they ever knew, everything he ever taught them, was scraped away. The hole in their minds was filled with a new algorithm, orange and dull. In vain, their leader called to them. In vain, he called to his User, Alan-One, to save them from this terrible evil.

All in vain.

There was nothing left of the programs he once knew and loved.

Somewhere, out there in the interminable spaces beyond the Grid, the Users went about their lives, none the wiser.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You KNOW Alan "lemme-take-this-evil-supercomputer-down-nearly-singlehandedly-and-all-within-company-policy" Bradley would have cleaned that mess up real quick. Had he only known.


	10. Explosion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cyrus happens to be in the right place at the right time.

Cyrus stood at the helm of the Recognizer, watching the reflections of his prisoner and his fellow sentry in the window. His throat was tight with anxiety, but hope still beat strong within him, burning brighter than his fear.

The hope had begun as he stood guard outside the east wing, listening to the muffled whine of Dyson’s disk. He was struck by the incredible _silence_ of the place, eerie and powerful.

He mentioned this to the other sentry. Why did the prisoner stay so silent?

The other said two words that changed everything.

Everything.

Cyrus tried to mask his feelings in the moment, but could not hide it when Dyson walked out of the prison and ordered them to take the prisoner to the Recognizer. Cyrus stared into the face of his leader, his circuits nearly overloading in horror. Dyson had practically tortured Tron into shutdown.

Cyrus lifted the prisoner’s restraining mechanism, and helped the other sentry carry him into the Recognizer. A plan began to form in his mind.

The plan solidified now, as he stared out over the darkness below him. Glancing at the map on the rightmost console, he took note of their position.

Tron City, to their rear. The cliff, straight ahead. And somewhere, several thousand pixels beyond the cliff’s edge, 0x00A103 waited.

Cyrus glanced at the screen. He knew how to perform an unauthorized breach from his security training days—to defend the Grid more effectively against criminals, Tron insisted they learn how the criminals operated. Well, now he and Tron were the criminals. He could override control without the other sentry noticing. It would be easy. Gain access to the system. Adjust the Recognizer’s path eleven degrees to the right. He’d crash the Recognizer on the cliff, in full sight of the city. Anyone watching—and programs would be watching—would think every program on board was derezzed in the crash.

There was only one problem—the other sentry. What could be done with him? He couldn’t know about the hidden cave, yet Cyrus didn’t feel right derezzing him, either. He stared down at the controls, weighing the costs.

The prisoner groaned, shifting in his restraints.

“Hey, shut it, null unit,” the other sentry snapped. Cyrus turned to see the sentry jab his club into Tron’s abdomen. He had an awful wound there already, scabbed over with blackened, corrupted data. Someone—Dyson? Clu?—had nearly sliced him apart. When the sentry’s club made impact, the old wound reopened, spilling fresh, bright energy onto the floor.

Cyrus turned away, his insides clenching.

Behind him, the sentry was laughing. “Heh. How the mighty have fallen.” He gave the prisoner another well-placed blow with the club. “The great Tron, nothing but a helpless junk heap.”

“Stop that,” Cyrus hissed, whipping around. He scanned the other sentry, breaking through the standardization mask, searching for his unique identification. There. “VERIF-IR-159055,” Cyrus commanded. “We are to take the prisoner to the Rectification Center. We are not to interact with the prisoner.”

A strange, blank look passed over the other sentry’s face. “Clu is supreme,” he muttered. “This infidel transgressed in the eyes of Clu.”

“Yeah, and we’re taking him where he belongs. No need to—”

“Clu is supreme,” the other sentry continued, vacantly. “We achieve perfection through submission to our great Luminary. This prisoner has transgressed. Why do you show him mercy?”

The look in the other sentry’s eyes so disturbed Cyrus, he didn’t see the yellow warning flash across the Recognizer’s screen. By the time he noticed the hull breach siren, it was too late.

There was an explosion somewhere beneath them. It rattled the core of Cyrus’ code, and made his ears pop. He seized a support and hung on for dear life as the Recognizer spun out of control, pinwheeling to the lower cliffs below, leaving a blazing trail of smoke and fire in its wake. The other sentry lost his balance and fell through the window of the Recognizer. Tron was secure, his restraining mechanism bound to the floor.

“No, no, no, no, no…” Dimly aware he was screaming like a Bit, Cyrus tightened his grip on the support and willed Tron’s restraints to hold.

After an eternity, the programs up in the control center stabilized the Recognizer, but they could not raise its trajectory. They were going down, no matter what. As the vehicle roared forward, stuck at a sideways angle, Cyrus swung himself upward, towards a support near the status screen. Hanging on with one hand, he opened a live schematic with the other. They were moving at 600 px a nanosecond, straight towards a cliff. The Recognizer’s right support was gone—analytics showed it had been torn apart by some kind of internal combustion.

“All right… this is fine…” Cyrus shook his head. Worst really had come to worst, but now that the worst was here, he felt strangely calm. “It’s fine,” he whispered, not even sure why he was whispering it. “It’s all going according to plan.” Plan? What plan? None of this was part of Able’s plan. Probably the nerves talking. Cyrus shook his head again, scanning the rapidly approaching ground for a landing place that had the lowest chance of derezzing them on impact.

There. A small bank of frozen data. That would do.

Cyrus carefully edged over to the restraint mechanism, bracing himself against the shivering of the Recognizer, and stared up into his leader’s face. The left side was badly damaged, his eye completely gone. The other eye stared ahead, unfocused, glazed over in shock.

Cyrus bit his lip, and attempted to ping Tron.

_CYRUS-VDK-901009 >> It’s okay, I’ve got you, I’m taking you to safety._

The ping echoed back with an error warning.

_ERROR: Attempted PING to target==TRON-JA-307020 returned unsuccessful. Target’s receiving port is not operational._

“Oh, Users,” Cyrus whispered, running a brief scan on the injured program. He was no medic, but he could scan for vulnerabilities.

Tron had 991 damaged processes, half of them knocked completely offline.

“991!” Cyrus bit his lip, panic and fury raging within him. “Users, _991_!” He derezzed the restraints.

Tron fell forward, and Cyrus caught him easily. He was lighter than Cyrus remembered from training with him. Much lighter. Data loss, Cyrus realized with a pang.

Tron blinked, trying to focus. “Who are you?” he whispered.

 _Users, they messed you up. You can’t even recognize me._ “The name’s Cyrus,” Cyrus said aloud, trying to sound reassuring. “I’m a friend!”

Tron blinked, struggling to stay conscious, to even form words. “You—you work for Dyson,” he mumbled. “For _Clu_.”

“Not anymore,” Cyrus said, and before he could worry himself out of it, he stepped to the edge of the Recognizer. “Now jump.”

It was more a command to himself than his half-paralyzed companion, but it did the trick.

As they plummeted downwards through the data storm, Cyrus felt Tron’s grip tighten instinctively around his arm. “Hang on, Tron,” Cyrus shouted over the wind. “This is not gonna be my most graceful landing.” He engaged the flyer on his back, and they shot upwards.

Cyrus felt something warm on his arm. He glanced down and saw it, running down his arm and crystallizing in the frigid air. Energy. Not his.

“Users…” Cyrus muttered, adjusting the flyer until their descent reached a somewhat reasonable pace. Sighing in relief, he looked up in time to see the Recognizer impact the cliff with a tremendous crash. For a moment, the entire cliffside was illuminated in orange, and he braced himself as the shockwave rocked through the air.


	11. Perfection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some programs just want to watch the world burn.

The irritating, creeping unease that constantly crawled through the Sysadmin’s background processes had finally gone quiet for a while.

Blissfully quiet.

Perfection was underway.

The Grid had undergone a grand change this cycle. Flynn, the false deity, had been overthrown. Tron’s whole security team was now under Clu’s command, all their code blocked out except the parts that were given to great loyalty.

Tron and Cyrus were _exactly_ where he wanted them.

In the distance, he watched the tiny orange light of the Recognizer head out towards the Outlands. He watched it disappear among the mountains, and watched the map of the Grid, spread out on the floor around him, dynamic and shifting in perfect time with the system.

“Right… about… _now_ ,” he whispered, and a small orange circle rippled out from the Outlands area. Recognizer 18 had gone down in address space 0x00A103.

Glancing down at the map, Clu zoomed in on the location, and sent the Grid a request for program signatures in the area.

A moment later—and it was a longer moment than Clu would have liked—the Grid responded. “Two programs located in 0x00A103,” came the whisper.

“Identify those programs,” Clu ordered.

There was a long pause, longer than before.

Clu knit his eyebrows, and prepared to drive a deeper command into the Grid, but then the response bounced back. “TRON-JA-307020, CYRUS-VDK-901009.”

Perfect.

Clu leaned against the window, chuckling to the silence. Perfect. Perfect. It was perfect. Now for a message. He sighed in amusement, opening up Cyrus’ code file, navigating to the hidden one-way mirror, deep within his subroutines.

_Perfect… a little too perfect, don’t you think?_

He’d send it…eh, five, ten nanos from now. Give Cyrus enough time to escape, breathe, think.

Yes.

 _Yes_.

Clu settled back into his chair, keeping an eye on the message, unable to keep from grinning. For once, things were finally going well.


	12. Running Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cyrus might have saved Tron from the exploding Recognizer, but that's just the beginning of their troubles.

Cyrus steeled himself against the wind, pressing towards the cliffside where he knew the cave would be.

Forward.

Forward.

One foot in front of the other.

Cyrus clenched his jaw. _Forward_. Even after all that data loss, Tron was still a solid weight, and both of them were losing power rapidly.

“Hang in there,” Cyrus urged Tron. "One foot in front of the other, that's it." He scanned the cliffside for hollows, pinging the Grid for a location.

The response bounced back quickly. _0x00A103._

“That’s it! We’re close!” Cyrus powered forward, towards the cliffside. Hollow… hollow… _there_! He walked towards it as quickly as he could, nearly tripping on the uneven ground. At the mouth of the cave, he carefully set Tron on the ground and dragged him into the shelter.

They'd made it.

They'd made it!

He hadn’t failed! He hadn’t. Things had turned out perfectly. Almost too perfectly. Cyrus paused, leaning forward against the vicious wind. There was something worrisome in that thought, burning at the edge of his mind. Lucky thing he’d been on the Recognizer. Lucky thing the support had exploded. Lucky thing the other sentry hadn’t apprehended him. Lucky thing—

Cyrus shook his head. Now was not the time.

Tron’s circuits were fading. He slumped over.

“Hey,” Cyrus said. “Stay with me.”

Slowly, Tron raised his head.

“That’s it.” _Come on, Tron. You can’t derezz on me. Users, he’s gonna derezz on me, isn’t he—_ “You’re going to be all right.”

The other program blinked. “You did this,” he said, weakly. “Why?”

Cyrus blinked. Why? There were a million reasons why! He seized the first reason he could form words around. “Can't let a revolution end before it has a chance to start.”

Tron sighed, and closed his eyes.

“Come on.” Cyrus pulled him deeper into the cave, looking around wildly. This was the place, he was sure of it. A bright glow of energy, just beyond the next twist in the tunnel, confirmed it. This _was_ the place. So where was everyone? Able promised there would be someone here…

Rounding the next bend, Cyrus found the source of the glow. It was a whole shelf full of bottled energy, glowing behind a clear wall with a welcome, blue light. “Oh, _yes_. Thank you, Able.” Cyrus gently leaned Tron against the wall beside the shelf. “How are you holding up?”

Tron was silent.

Cyrus raced to the shelf, derezzed the covering, and grabbed two bottles of energy. Holding Tron upright, he made him drink the first bottle.

And it hit Cyrus, all at once, that this was _Tron_ he'd just saved from the crashing Recognizer, _Tron_ who was too weak to sit up on his own. Legendary defeater of the MCP, the unconquerable one, the unbreakable one. And here he was. Broken. Too broken to even recognize one of his own.

It was all wrong.

 _Please work please work please work_ , Cyrus thought. _Please be okay._

As the energy worked its way into his system, Tron’s circuits began to glow with a more stable light. A quick scan showed that four of his broken processes were coming back online.

"Come on..."

Tron opened his good eye a little.

"Tron?" Cyrus attempted. "You're safe. I got you out of there."

Tron's forehead wrinkled in surprise. “ _Cyrus?_ ”

“Yes!” Cyrus cried. “It’s me. It’s me. You’re safe.”

“What happened?” Tron attempted to sit up. “How did you…” His features twisted in agony, and he leaned forward, pressing both hands over the wound on his stomach.

“Relax,” Cyrus ordered. “Don’t move.” _Where is everyone?_ “You’ve been badly injured, and you need to rest.” _I’m no medic, I can’t handle this alone…_

“You saved me,” Tron said. “Thank you.” He would have said more, but a deep, retching cough tore itself through his system, leaving him a shivering mess.

Cyrus bit his lip. _Not good, not good,_ he thought. _I can’t help him. I can’t. But if—if I leave to get help, he might derezz while I’m gone._ “It'll be okay,” he said aloud. “Help is on the way. I’m gonna stay here, with you, until they arrive.”

“Who?” Tron muttered.

“The mechanic, um… Able, and your counterpart, uh… Lori… Yori. _Yori_.”

His eyes widened. “They’re alive?”

“Yes. They’re alive. You’re gonna see them soon, I promise..”

Tron’s breathing hitched. He reached out and gripped the younger program’s hand.

Cyrus flinched at the touch. It was too cold, too shaky, as though it would shatter into voxels at any moment. “Yeah,” Cyrus said, and cleared his throat. “They’ll be here soon. Hang in there.”

Tron began to cough again, an awful, shattering sound. He curled up miserably on the floor, still holding onto Cyrus with one hand, clutching the other over his stomach, as though he could hold himself together through sheer force of will. His body heaved, and he spat out energy and data shards, jagged and glittering and wrong.

Cyrus’ circuits ran cold.

 _He’s derezzing from the inside out_.

Cyrus’ thoughts all collided with one another. No, no, everything was going wrong. He should bolt and run. He should go for help. He should stay. He should _think_ of a solution. He should—Users, he was just a virus detector with some useless sentry code slapped on, useless, _useless,_ no good to anyone—

A bright blue _something_ flashed overhead, derailing Cyrus' train of thought before it ran him over again.

Cyrus was on his feet in a flash, every nerve standing on end, prepared to defend Tron to the last. The next moment, he sighed, almost collapsing in relief. It was only a Bit—Able’s Bit by the looks of its signature. “Oh, _glitch_ am I glad to see you,” Cyrus said, his eyes filling with tears. “Did Able send you here?”

 _Yes_ , said the Bit. It swooped closer to Tron, curious, concerned as a Bit could be.

“Is Able all right?”

 _Yes_.

“Oh, thank the Users—is he—are you the only one here?”

The Bit hesitated. _No._

“I—I mean, are we three the only ones here? You, me, Tron?”

 _Yes_.

“Okay. Okay, Bit, I need you to listen to me.”

The Bit floated back up, level with Cyrus’ face.

“Bit, find Able—”

_Yes!_

“—or Yori.”

_Yes, yes!_

“Send them a message transcribed from Basic to binary.”

_Yes!_

“Are you ready for the message?”

_Yes! Yes! Yes!_

“Okay. Here goes. C and T at location. C okay, T injured. Need medical aid now. End of line. Okay. Got that, Bit?”

 _Yes_.

“Okay. Go! Hurry!”

_Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes…!_

The Bit shot out of the cave and into the storm, screaming affirmatives all the way.

Cyrus sat beside Tron, and placed a reassuring hand on his back. “Hey. You still there?"

Tron looked up at Cyrus, an awful helplessness in his eyes.

"They'll be here soon," Cyrus said, trying hard to keep his voice even. "Try and stay awake 'til they get here, okay?”

Tron sighed, and the sound rattled in his chest. Cyrus closed his eyes. Time was running out.


	13. We May Have to Improvise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The devil works hard, but the Bit works harder!

Yori and Able were still underground when the colorful blur came zipping in on them, shrieking a rapid string of _YES’s_ and _NO’s_ at them.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Able said, holding out his hands to catch the Bit. “Someone certainly got a lot to say.”

Able’s hands flickered red and yellow as the Bit pulsed frantically with the message, the sound muffled. _NO YES NO NO NO NO YES YES NO NO YES NO NO NO NO NO—_

“Hey!”

_—NO YES YES NO NO NO NO YES—_

“Hey, pipe down!” Able hissed. “Can’t you tell we’re trying to be inconspicuous?”

“Shake it,” Yori said, wiping her eyes.

“Huh?”

“Trust me. Shake it.” Yori sniffed, and rubbed her nose. “Always works. Bits don’t mind.”

With a dubious tilt of his head, Able shook the Bit. It went still, the sound stopping abruptly.

“See?” Yori sniffed again. “Now. That sounded like a message.”

 _Yes,_ came the muffled reply.

“Can I let go of it?” Able asked.

_YES!_

“Yes,” Yori said, smiling through her tears.

Able carefully let the Bit go, and it buzzed over to Yori’s face. “Do you have a message for us?”

_Yes yes yes._

“Okay.” Yori rezzed a screen on the wall. “Able, let’s both transcribe it so we can compare. My binary to Basic is a little rusty.”

“On it.” Able rezzed his own screen. “Go ahead, Bit.”

The Bit began its lengthy message, and when it was done, Able gestured to his screen.

01000011 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01010100 00100000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101100 01101111 01100011 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01000011 00100000 01101111 01101011 01100001 01111001 00100000 01010100 00100000 01101001 01101110 01101010 01110101 01110010 01100101 01100100 00100000 01001110 01100101 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101101 01100101 01100100 01101001 01100011 01100001 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101001 01100100 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01000101 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100101

Yori glanced between the two screens. “Exactly what I have. Good. Let’s transcribe it to Basic.”

“Race ya,” Able muttered, already writing symbols above each four-character string.

“Hey, now!” Yori grinned, and set to work transcribing her own message.

_C and T at location C okay T injured Need medical aid now End of line_

Yori stepped back from the wall, pressing her fist to her mouth, thinking. T injured… T injured… but not derezzed, as the rumors said. “Not derezzed,” she muttered.

“Not derezzed,” Able echoed. “How about that.”

“But he needs medical attention!” Yori cried. “Able, do you know of any medics we can trust?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“We may have to improvise.”

“Improvise? Yori—”

“Your skill set is data recovery. Mine is simulation.”

“Recovery of files and—vehicle parts, yes. Living programs? Get out of here.”

“How different can it be?”

Able’s eyes flew wide open. “ _Very_ different!”

 _Yes_ , the Bit agreed.

“Okay, right, so back to what I said before. We improvise.”

“I’m not about to go all lightcycle surgeon on your man,” Able cried.

“You won’t have to!”

“I better not have to.”

“Listen! You’re a mechanic. I’m a simulator. We can build a mechanism to do the medical work for us!”

“That will be a complicated, time-consuming process,” Able said. “Good thing he doesn’t urgently need our help or anything.”

Yori sighed. “We have to _try_ , Able.”

“I suppose we could build prosthetics or something, but we don’t even know that’s what he needs. Bit, is that what he needs?”

 _No_.

Able rolled his eyes. “Great, wonderful.”

“Wait, Able, that is wonderful. He doesn’t need prosthetics, that means he’s not missing any limbs. Ask more questions—um, is, is he… infected with a virus?”

_No._

“Hmm.” Able leaned towards the Bit. “Is he wounded?”

 _Yes_.

“Is he losing data?”

_Yes._

“Losing energy?”

 _Yes_.

“Is he in danger of derezzing?”

 _Yes_.

“Within the decicycle?”

 _Yes_.

“Hmm. Is he awake?”

 _No_.

“Able, we gotta get there _now_ ,” Yori said.

_Yes._

“Wait, wait,” said Able. “I know what he needs. I don’t… I’ve never _built_ one before, but I know what he needs.”

“What?”

“Remember when Flynn first started transporting programs into the Grid, and every once in a while, something would go screwy in transport, and they’d derezz?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Flynn had a sit-down with a couple of medics, and they thought up this device to help programs that got mixed up in transport. All the poor programs that wound up with their leg rezzed in their head, yeah, there was no hope for them. But the rest could be saved.”

“The healing chamber,” Yori murmured.

“Right. They invented the healing chamber. And now it’s a staple in every medical center, Gridwide.” Able rubbed his chin. “I’ll bet Tron could use something like that.”

 _Yes_ , said the Bit.

“Yes,” Yori echoed. “And _I’ll_ bet we could mimic it, if we had the plans.”

“Lucky for us, I archived the plans!”

“ _Yes_!” Yori threw her arms around Able. “Let’s find that archive, collect whatever materials we can get our hands on—we may have to improvise a bit—and get up to that cave!”

“On it. Hey, Bit?”

_Yes?_

“Go back to my garage for now. Stay in the rafters, keep an eye on things.”

 _Yes!_ The Bit zoomed out of the tunnel.

“Hang on, Tron,” Yori muttered, rezzing her helmet. “We’re on our way.”

The two programs masked their circuitry as much as their permissions would allow—and then some, with the help of Yori’s simulated cloaks—and headed out into the city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 01010100 01101000 01100001 01101110 01101011 01110011 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100110 01100001 01110010 00100001


	14. The Healing Chamber

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Able and Yori attempt an ambitious project to save Tron.

Tron was getting worse. His circuits flickered feverishly, struggling between darkness and lurid colors that were not his own. His breathing grated like the engine of a busted light cycle. Cyrus could hardly watch. Tron was fighting, fighting desperately to overcome Dyson's corrupting code, but it was a losing battle. There wasn’t enough energy left inside him. He wasn’t going to make it.

_He wasn’t going to make it._

The realization shot through Cyrus, electric and cold, driving him to his feet. What was he doing? He had to go for help, had to leave _right now_ , had to do something. Anything.

No sooner had he scrambled to his feet when he heard voices outside. Yori and Able burst into the cave, each carrying a toolbox, warming the cave with their strong presence. Cyrus could breathe again. “Oh, thank you—thank—thank goodness you’re here,” he cried, and his voice broke and he didn’t care. “He’s not doing too well.”

“Well, I should think not,” Able said. “Dyson isn’t known for his compassion.”

“Tron,” Yori cried, running to him. She settled beside him, clasping her hand against the undamaged half of his face.

Tron’s good eye opened for a moment, a slit of muted, blue agony.

“Oh, my love.” Yori’s voice shook. “What have they done to you?” She leaned her forehead against his, taking one steadying breath, and another. “We’re going to take care of everything. Everything, okay? Please just—don’t—derezz.”

“Second that request,” Able said.

“Cyrus.” Yori straightened up, resolution burning in her eyes. “I cannot thank you enough for your courage. If it weren’t for you…” She shook her head. “Did you give him energy?”

“Yes,” Cyrus said. “Don’t know how much he was able to keep down.”

“Glitch. Okay.” Yori bit her lower lip, rummaging through her toolbox. “Okay. Take this.” She handed Cyrus a small flask of white liquid. “Take this. It’ll purify and cauterize the wound on his face.”

Cyrus took the flask. It was cold, sterilizing, too bright to look at directly.

“One drop at a time, it’s strong stuff,” Yori instructed. “We’re gonna build a healing chamber.”

Cyrus was awed. “You know how to build _that_?”

“Of course, we do!” Yori said.

“We’re gonna find out!” Able added.

Yori rounded on Able with a glare. “Able, you take care of the frame. I’m going to set up the purification field.”

“On it,” Able said.

The two programs set about their work with grim urgency, and Cyrus resumed his post beside his leader, tending the wound on his face, cooling torn and burning pixels into a dull gray. It seemed to hurt, enough to cut through the haze of forced partial-shutdown. The injured program flinched, leaning away from Cyrus with an awful look on his face.

Terrified, Cyrus realized. Tron was _terrified_. And in the next moment, he knew why. In Tron’s damaged state, he must have thought Cyrus was Dyson, returning to finish him off for good.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Cyrus held him still, easily. Too easily. It shouldn’t have been that easy. “It’s okay, Tron,” Cyrus promised through the ache in his throat, promised even though he knew Tron couldn’t hear him. “I’m trying to help you. It’s all right. I’m a friend, I promise, I’m a friend…”

“Cyrus?” Able’s voice.

Cyrus looked up.

“Chamber’s done. Help me carry him.”

Cyrus nodded, bracing himself against the ground. Together, he and Able lifted Tron to his feet, carried him to the chamber where Yori stood, weary eyed, still transferring bottles of energy from the shelf to the chamber. They settled him in the bubbling energy field, and Cyrus couldn’t look at Tron anymore so he looked at Able instead, at the deep, dark gray of the old program’s hands, and an ancient, pale scar where he’d burned himself with a data welder, long, long ago.


	15. A Long Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the worst of it over, the renegades take a break. Able tells a story about derailing a train. Yori tells the story of how she and Tron met. Cyrus, whose story has just begun, tries to stay awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whole lotta backstory and worldbuilding in this one

The data storm howled outside, but deep within the cliff, it was warm and peaceful.

The worst was over. All they could do now was wait for the chamber to do its work, and so they waited—Cyrus flat on the ground; Yori against the cave wall, watching Tron. As for Able, he sat against the opposite wall, watching everyone at once. Good programs, all of them. All willing to go to the extreme for the good of the Grid. None willing to rest. And yet they rested now, in silence.

Yori was the first one to break the silence. “When he’s able to stand, we’ll… we’ll build this thing into what it’s supposed to look like.” She spoke to no one in particular, spoke to fill the quiet. “Right now, it’s more of a bathtub than a chamber. It’s not supposed to be open on top.”

“Bathtub?” Cyrus asked.

“A User thing,” Able and Yori replied, in unison.

“Ah. Man, I hope Tron’s gonna be okay.” Cyrus rolled onto his stomach, resting his chin on his arms.

Able narrowed his eyes. The kid was exhausted.

“I hope so, too,” Yori said. She bowed her head, circuits dimming.

As the silence deepened, Able could sense his companions’ spirits sinking. No. This would not do. Enough was enough. There had been enough darkness for one cycle. “Hey, now.” He sighed, straightening up. “Us worrying about him ain’t gonna make him heal faster. In fact, I think it’ll have the opposite effect. Cyrus, pass around a bottle of energy, will you?”

“Don’t we need to save it?” Cyrus asked. “We’ve already used half our supply on that chamber.”

“There’s a small reservoir under this cave,” Able said. “Besides, this is the first day of the revolution. Live a little, _renegade_.”

“Able’s right,” Yori said. She sat up a little straighter, and snapped her fingers. “Energy.”

Cyrus shrugged and obeyed, selecting a bottle on the smaller side. He offered it to Yori, but she waved him off. “You first, kid. You need it the most.”

Cyrus smiled gratefully, and took a slow sip.

“Now.” Able clapped his hands, and laced his fingers under his chin. “Sitting around here sulking in self-pity is _just_ what Clu wants us to do. He _wants_ us to think we’re beat. Well, we’re not.”

“No way,” Yori said, as Cyrus handed her the energy. She took a sip, and blinked. “Wow. That’s some high-purity stuff.”

“Only the best for our secret operation,” Able said.

Yori took another sip. She smiled wearily, and raised the bottle. “To the revolution.”

“To the revolution,” Able and Cyrus echoed.

Able wasn’t about to let the silence settle. Nothing soothed the soul like a little mindless rambling. “Say,” he began, brightly. “Did I ever tell you programs about the time a couple search algorithms and I derailed a train?”

“No!” Yori replied. She took a deep breath, settling against the warm wall of the energy chamber. “Do tell.”

“Well, it was back in the old Encom system, several cycles after you and the big T here defeated the MCP. Remember that track that ran between Hub 67 and Hub 98?”

“How could I forget?” Yori shuddered.

“What about the track?” Cyrus shrugged. “I was barely out of Beta when Flynn brought me here. I don’t remember much about the Encom system.”

“Oh, this track was always having problems. One day, my friends and I, we were cruising down the ravine on the other side of the track, on light cycles that I’d modded like you would not believe. Man, those things could fly!” Able whistled. “Anyway, we crest the ridge, we get to the place where the track _should be_ , so we can run it down the hill and get some real speed before the mid-cycle train comes through.”

“Should be?” Cyrus grinned.

“Hmm,” Able grunted. “We crest the ridge, and the track’s just—gone. Completely collapsed. Nothing but a bunch of shredded data. So I look at my programs, and they look back at me, and then this one program—IdaStar, she called herself—IdaStar gets this look in her eyes. You know?” Able grinned slyly, and was pleased when Yori and Cyrus began to smile. “Heheh. Anyway, IdaStar says, ‘Programs? We got ourselves a train to crash.’ ”

“Oh, boy,” Yori said.

“So we _slam_ our ’cycles into gear and we tear _megabyte_ up and over the hill, sometimes following the track, sometimes not, sometimes crashing right through abandoned structures. Sometimes, one of the programs would separate from the group and go find their own way. I tried to stay close on IdaStar’s wheels.”

“Did you stop the train?”

“Yeah, we did. I saw it in the distance, this tiny dot on the horizon, and I just slowly rolled to a stop in the dirt.” Able laughed. “It was like my User reached into the system and slapped me upside my head. What—what was I thinking? Here I go, tiny little Basic, gonna save a train by crashing my lightcycle directly into it? _No_! Of course, the others just kept plowing ahead.”

“Classic search engines,” Yori said.

“I pinged ’em to come back real quick before they got out of range, went to the track, and started pulling it apart. Figured building a circular stretch of track that curved back around and rejoined the original track would do the trick, so long as there wasn’t a train coming in behind it.

“You rerouted an entire train?” Cyrus asked. “That’s incredible!”

“Eh, it was nothing. I had about a millicycle’s worth of time, and laying track wireframe is easy stuff for a data recovery program. Still. Craziest ride I ever went on, but when you’re in a pack of search algorithms, you do _not_ argue about the commute.”

“Search algorithms.” Yori rolled her eyes.

“You got any good search algorithm stories, Yori?” Able asked.

“Oh, I got one.” Yori’s eyes grew distant. “But it was a long… long time ago.”

“Tell it,” Cyrus encouraged.

“Hm. Well… it was during an Encom software update cycle. Tron and I were just a couple of young programs, fresh out of Beta, trying to find a place where two could settle down. You know, someplace decent, cozy, Bit-friendly. We needed a search engine to help us find it.” Yori shifted to a cross-legged position, warming to her tale. “Now, this was before the MCP’s defeat, way before your runtime, Cy. Did you ever experience an Encom software update cycle?”

“No. Flynn moved us over before then, saved us from deletion.”

“Right.” Yori sighed. “Well… the Grid’s order of operation is far smoother than Encom’s when it comes to repair—Flynn knew what he was doing. There were no medical programs in the Encom system, and as far as I know, there still aren’t. All of our repair came _directly_ through our Users—one of the reasons why the MCP’s ideology was so debilitating.” Yori rolled her eyes. “Where was I?”

“Encom software update cycle,” Cyrus said.

“Right. So, it’s a software update cycle. Everyone’s busy, traffic is jammed up, every decent search algorithm in the Grid is completely booked. So, being young and naïve, we go with the first search program we can find. As luck would have it, he was a stochastic algorithm. And not a very good one.”

“Oh, man,” Able laughed. “You poor kids.”

“Yyyyyeah.” Yori clicked her tongue. “Yep, so we spent a few millicycles getting completely lost in the dustiest… _randomest_ corners of Encom, before we finally decided to give it up and stick it out in those dingy old Beta blocks until a better place turned up.”

“I can see it now,” Able said.

“Get this—one of our neighbors was an MP3 program whose idea of a good time was to practice his limited assortment of notification sounds at all hours of the cycle! Oh, man… Tron almost put a hole through his wall… But we were young, we had fun with it.”

“That was before the MCP?” Able asked.

“Yes—well, before its complete takeover, of course. See, we knew the MCP was out there somewhere. Tron’s first task in the system was to track it down and put it in its place!” Yori looked towards the healing chamber with a smile, her eyes shining with a faraway light. “He just sort of met me along the way… and… we ended up searching together, figuring it out as we went. We worked together well.”

“How did you two meet, anyway?” 

“I was working as simulation director for the digitizing laser. I’d been in the system for about a cycle, when all of a sudden, this young program comes cycling down the datastream, just out of beta, searching for suspicious, MCP-ish activity. I was his first stop along the way, actually. Flynn told us later that our Users must have planned it that way, which I always got a kick out of—you know, the fact that our Users knew each other?”

“Wait,” Cyrus mumbled, sleepily. “Were they counterparts, too?”

“I don’t know. As with everything Flynn said, every answer he gave inspired ten more questions which he never had time to reply to.” Yori tossed her hair. “Anyway, this new program, he just busts in through the front door, clearing the firewall like it was nothing. He seemed very urgent about something, so I asked him his business. Said he was here on a mission from his User, trying to track down ‘that abominable corruption of power, the MCP.’ Those were his exact words.”

“Kinda wish I’d known beta Tron,” Able chuckled. “ ‘Abominable corruption of power.’ Heheheh. What’d you say to that?”

“I just laughed and asked him for some credentials. And glitch—the program had _credentials_. I remember wondering what kind of power his User had, to give him legal access to the entire Encom system. The code was strong, clean, and authentic, not a bit of sketchiness anywhere. So I nodded, like, all right, okay, I see you.

“And he asks me, respectfully, if he can continue on his mission. I told him that _I_ sure wasn’t hiding the MCP anywhere around my little laser lab, but he was welcome to look as long as he didn’t mess up anything.

“It wasn’t long before he found what he was looking for. There was a virus hidden in the data bank—clever virus, very sneaky—and he figured out in a _nano_ what had been plaguing me for _millicycles_.”

“What?” Able asked.

“Well, my assistants kept disappearing! One millicycle, they’d be fine. The next, they’d go blank, utterly task focused, and the milli after that, they were gone. Just… gone. I always thought my User, Lora-Prime, was deleting them because they were so bad at doing their job—they were, by the way, very bad. You’d think it wouldn’t be that hard to draw up a wireframe for an _orange_. Lora-Prime clearly wasn’t their User, they were all written by someone coded INTERN.

“I digress. They weren’t being deleted, they were being appropriated. The malware would infect them, _through_ the console, tag them for appropriation. Once they were tagged, they were goners. And the energy signature Tron picked up showed that the program responsible was far, far away, up by the administration section of the system.”

“The _glitching MCP_!” Cyrus exclaimed, jolting out of partial sleep mode.

“That’s right, the glitching MCP!” Yori smiled, pushing her hair out of her face and twisting it into a braid as she continued. “So… he gets concerned, _very_ concerned, looking at me like I’ve got malware coming out of my head.” Yori made a face of immense concern, quickly shattering into laughter again. “‘What are you lookin‘ at, program?’ I ask him. And would you guess it, his entire system goes _pink_. I’d never seen so much of it on one program.”

Cyrus laughed, getting out another container of energy.

“It was adorable, yes, but I wanted to hear what had him all wound up, so I held my comments. He starts stuttering out an explanation. He’s worried I may be tagged for appropriation, too, but he’s got to scan me, and normally he doesn’t ask permission—doesn’t need it, already has it, built into his code by the power of his User—and by this point, he’s stammering so much, I’m starting to wonder if his vocal processor has contracted a glitch—but he just felt it would be rude to scan me without _my_ permission.”

“Users.” Cyrus drained the container in a single gulp.

“So I say: ‘Are you asking for my permission?’”

Able clapped his hands together.

“And he goes…” Yori launched into her best Tron impression, staring into space with the intensity of a laser beam, twitching her jaw, inhaling until she felt ready to burst, and then—“ ‘ _Confirmed_.’ ”

“Users, you are way too good at that,” Cyrus muttered. “Genuinely terrifying.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve lived with the program a few cycles.” Yori shrugged. “So I told him to quit messing around and scan me already! If I had malware, I wanted to know. He did scan me, and sure enough, I’d been tagged for appropriation. I had a few simple safeguards in place though, thanks to my User. I’d been fighting it without even knowing it was there.”

“He must have been _real_ intrigued by that,” Cyrus remarked.

“Right, that’s enough from you.” Yori kicked the empty energy container at Cyrus, smiling gleefully. “Well, he was able to take care of the malware—a rather awkward and unglamorous procedure, but it had to be done.” Yori tied off her braid primly. “And I told him, once it was over, I told him I was gonna help him take down this _MCP_.”

“And nothing he could say would convince you otherwise,” Able said.

“Oh, I was ready to argue, all right. He kind of stared at me, at first, sizing me up. And I braced myself to fight—here it comes, I thought, he’s gonna laugh at me, tell me no. Little simulation program. What difference do you really believe you can make?” Yori shook her head. “Those words never came. He just… smiled at me, the brightest smile I’d ever seen, and told me _yes_.”

“Yes,” Cyrus said, doubtfully. “Yes—just like that— _yes_.”

“Yes!” Yori grinned. “Yes, I could go with him. Yes. If I was ready to leave by the end of the microcycle. I told him I was ready now. And that was that.”

“Betas,” Able laughed.

“Honestly.” Yori yawned, leaning back against the wall. “Well… that’s where it all started. We were in the system for about two cycles, hunting for the MCP, when all of a sudden, we were the ones being hunted. You know the rest. Every program knows the rest. But I’ve talked enough. Able, I’m curious… what were _you_ doing during the great rise and demise of the MCP?”

“Oh, man.” Able laughed. “You both better get some more energy first. It’s a long story.”


	16. Stay with Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still stunned by Clu’s betrayal and the events afterward, Tron and Yori attempt to console each other in the rising wave of darkness.

As the stories wound their beautiful way along the jagged ice of the cave, Yori was imagining. The walls that had seemed so gray and cold when they first arrived had begun to take on a certain brightness, beguiling at first, and then almost welcoming. The geometric patterns of the rock ridges came alive in the flickering light of the healing chamber, and they seemed to whisper to her, very softly.

_Yes, it is cold… cold and isolated, out on the very edge of things… but I will keep you safe… I will keep you safe until it is all bright again._

Yori wondered if it was the voice of the Grid—some programs swore that the Grid spoke to them. Even Tron had wondered about it to her, one quiet cycle—he’d come to her, eyes wide with terrified wonder, certain he’d heard _something_. She’d brushed it off as exhaustion—of course the Grid couldn’t speak. That was almost as silly as saying a Recognizer could speak—or a lightcycle—or a piece of frozen data, floating in the Sea of Simulation.

No, the Grid couldn’t speak, not beyond its preprogrammed notifications, at least. Yori was just long overdue for a powerdown.

But she wouldn’t power down, not until she was certain Tron was going to be all right. Her vision kept circling back to him, watching his good eye, watching the lines of his terrible scars flicker and bubble in the energy field. She would feel it later, the rage; later, when she had the energy to withstand it. Now, she only wanted to pull him close.

The healing chamber was doing its work. Slowly, Tron’s circuits brightened, his burning, open wounds did not seem as angry as before, and he came back out of sleep mode. Yori watched him as he tried to focus, waited for him to realize she was watching.

Finally, his eye caught hers, and held on.

She smiled, slowly went to his side, took his hand, and scanned him.

“Ah.” Able sat up. “He’s back with us.”

Yori’s scans were inept at understanding the inner workings of most programs, but she had learned how Tron worked over the cycles, and although it wasn’t as useful as a proper medic’s scan, she could still understand it better than anyone else present. She could see that his internal derezzing had slowed somewhat. Still, his damage was extensive, and would take cycles to heal, if indeed it would ever heal properly.

As the others scanned him, he kept his face blank, clenching his jaw against all sound. A sharp edge of pity crept through Yori’s circuits. He hated this, she realized. Hated being so weak, hated being scanned—studied— _squinted_ at, like a leftover piece of badly-formed malware, washed up on the shores of the Sea.

“All right,” Yori said. “All right—okay. Enough, programs. Enough. There’s nothing more to see without a medic, so for now, just let him rest.”

“You’re right,” Able said. “And I should be getting back to the city, soon. Can’t raise any more suspicion.”

“Take an energy canister for the road,” Yori said, keeping her eyes on Tron. She wished more than anything to climb into the chamber beside him.

Able was watching her with worried, knowing eyes. “Go ahead,” he said, nodding at the chamber. “It’s just energy. Put up a shield, and you won’t even absorb a drop of it.”

Yori tilted her head.

“Go on. I know you want to.”

Yori nodded, and carefully slipped into the half-built chamber. She pulled Tron into her lap as gently as she knew how, willing him to be okay, carefully resting her hand on his chest—a small island where the injuries weren’t. She was surprised at how light Tron felt, as though he would dissolve into cubes in her arms. He trembled on the verge of complete shutdown. As he tensed weakly under her touch, Yori herself trembled as the anger crept in, picturing in high resolution all the ways she could derezz Clu.

“C’mon,” Able said to Cyrus. “Let’s give them some space.”

“Okay.” Cyrus crossed his arms. “Stay alive, all right, Tron?”

“Yeah,” Tron hissed, forcing a tight smile. “Thank you.”

“C’mon, Cyrus,” Able said, and pulled the young program out the door.

The instant the others left, the mask of impassivity fell. “Yori,” Tron whispered, his expression twisting. “I’m so… glad… you’re alive.”

“I’m glad _you’re_ alive. Hey. Stay that way, huh? I’ve kind of gotten used to having you around.”

He made a soft sound, and Yori realized he was barely holding back tears. Her circuits flooded with sympathy. Tron did not cry easily.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, holding him close against her. “It’s all over. You don’t have to be strong right now. You’re safe here with me. You’re safe. Oh, I’ll _derezz_ them for what they did to you…” Rage burned within her, so sharp and unbearable that her own eyes filled with tears. How could they do this to him? _How could they?_ He deserved none of it! Every cycle since his compilation, he’d done nothing but give the system his unconditional protection. It wasn’t fair. She pressed her face into his hair and wept, even as he remained silent and still.

Eventually, she felt a light touch on her hand, tapping, tapping, a steady beat. She raised her head.

“Yori,” he whispered, and his hand dropped. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” she hissed. “Don’t say that. Don’t you say that. You have _nothing_ to be sorry for.”

“When we last spoke… I…”

When they last spoke? When did they last speak? And then, Yori remembered it. The fight. That stupid fight. _Glitch_ , it seemed a million cycles away.

“When we last spoke, we were stressed out of our minds,” she said. “Neither of us meant what we said back there, Tron, but if anyone should be apologizing, it should be me.”

“No, I—”

“Shh! Shh. Quiet.” Her throat ached, tight and overheated. She could hardly speak. “It should be me, it should be me. I left you.”

“I… pushed _you_ away.”

Yori kept shaking her head, no, no, no, tears blurring her vision until she was blind.

“I pushed you away,” he repeated. He spoke slowly, painfully, every word fighting its way out. “Didn’t want you to see how weak I was.”

“No.” Yori bit her lip, squeezing her eyes shut. “Stop that. You’re not weak. You’re not.” She would have repeated it until the end of the cycle, but the ache in her throat cut her off.

Again, Tron raised one trembling hand up to Yori’s arm, and held on. He moved his thumb over the same place, slowly, continuously, in time with the deep, inner beat of his system. “I am sorry,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop all this from happening.”

 _No!_ Yori wanted to scream. _It isn’t your fault, Tron. It’s Clu’s fault. Not yours. Never yours!_ But she couldn’t say a word, physically couldn’t; and even if she could, what good would it do? He wouldn’t accept it.

They were quiet for a long while, listening to the trickling of the healing chamber, wondering what chaos was taking place elsewhere in the Grid. Gradually, Yori’s tears subsided, and she began to feel calm.

“Yori,” Tron whispered, so softly she almost missed it.

“Yes?”

He sighed. “Please…”

She listened closely, waiting, waiting, until she noticed the dimming and brightening of his circuits—slow and regular. He had gone into sleep mode mid-request, but she knew him well, and knew what he was going to ask.

Please stay.

Please stay with me.

He’d asked it in the beginning, when they were both still right out of Beta, and everything was bright. He’d asked it in those glorious and nightmare-filled cycles after the MCP’s defeat. He’d asked it on his last night in the Encom system, though at that point, it was a given. It was his most sincere request. Well, she was not going anywhere. She settled back against the wall of the energy tank, running her hands gently through his hair, willing him to find peace and solace in a dreamless sleep.

“Rest, my love,” she whispered. “When you are well, we will face Clu. We’ll destroy him for this. We’ll destroy all of them.”


	17. Cyrus' Promise

Cyrus stared out at the storm, lost in thought. Able had left several millicycles ago, taking a careful, circuitous route back to civilization. Both programs agreed that Cyrus should stay behind. It was likely that Clu’s forces presumed him dead, and if he were recognized in the city, the suspicions raised by _that_ would lead unsavory characters straight to the hideout.

He’d stay behind, keeping watch.

Meanwhile, Able would make his way back to the city, keeping his head down, listening, blending in.

Cyrus hoped Able had made it back all right. The storm was calmer now, visibility was up, but the wind still howled through the cliffs and screamed down the mountainside. The sound made Cyrus think of Dyson, the sound of his prisoners, the sound of his tools. Perverted. Those tools were meant for removing malware, purifying programs. Instead, Dyson used them for destruction, breaking subroutines, infecting programs with malware. What a sickening program. The sight of any program in pain made Cyrus feel ill, and he couldn't understand it -- the look on Dyson's face every time he was through with a prisoner. He enjoyed it! He got pleasure from torturing programs within an inch of their life!

And now Dyson, trusted and used by Clu, had free reign to enact his diabolical fantasies on even more programs.

The Grid was falling into a cold, dark new era, like a broken lightjet plunging into the Sea of Simulation. The Grid’s creator was now an object of enforced slander. The Grid’s defender was a shattered remnant of what he’d once been. The revered Users would become vulgar taboo. The ISOs would be run out of their homes like dirty viruses—and that included Diffie, wonderful, ever-smiling Diffie, who Cyrus couldn’t even reach right now for fear of bringing Clu’s whole militia down on their heads.

Tron had been struck down.

Tron. The invincible one. The defender of the Grid. 

The Grid had almost lost him, and indeed, the Grid might lose him still. Derezzing from the inside out... could anyone come back from that? Was it reasonable to hope?

Hope, in this cycle, seemed an idiotic pursuit. Cyrus had never known a time when the system wasn’t free. He didn’t have the tested faith of Yori and Able. Theoretically, tyrants like the MCP could be beaten, but the MCP… that was just a story, a story from another place, another time. The stuff of legend.

Clu was real. Clu was powerful. Clu had triumphed where the MCP failed.

 _No._ Cyrus ground his teeth, wrapping his fingers around an uneven ridge on the cave floor. He couldn’t lose hope. Luck would be with them, he had to believe that. After all, they’d been very lucky so far. It would have been easy for things to have gone wrong, as easy as getting assigned to the next prison cell down the hall.

Cyrus closed his eyes, but would not press his hands over his ears. He would listen, and listen, and hear what it had to say. He heard it in the screaming of the storm. The Grid was a prisoner, and it was in great suffering, trapped, crushed, crying out under Clu’s tyranny. It needed them. It needed a revolution. It needed to be set free.

Cyrus opened his eyes again, facing the storm and its endless screaming. In the wild rush of sound, he made a vow to the Grid, and to himself. “I will free you,” he whispered. “No matter the cost.”

\--

High in his tower, on the other side of the Grid, the Sysadmin watched his screen, listening to the sounds of the Grid. One whisper stood out above the rest. Smiling, Clu leaned forward, zooming in on that signal, deep in the heart of the Outlands.

He froze the signal on the screen, and listened to the echo as his smile grew.

"No matter the _cost_!" Clu clicked his tongue against his teeth. "Noted."

\--

_—END OF PART ONE—_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part One is complete! To all of you Tron fans who have read so far, thank you! Your existence makes me happy.  
> I've got some interesting stuff planned for Part Two, so hang tight.


	18. The Revolution Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been some time since the Coup. The renegades begin to make plans, but one of them cannot find agreement with the others.

PART 2

“It’s always snowing out here, isn’t it?” Able asked, deactivating the temporary shield and entering the cave.

“Able!” Yori cried, from the floor. She was decorating the base of the walls with simulated pink webbing. Leaping up, she greeted Able with a hug. “Good to see you again.”

“You, too. Nice shield, by the way.” Able flicked the inside of the shield, and it gave a small ripple.

“Thanks! It’s reinforced with a firewall; Tron and I set that up together. Configured it for four programs, and four programs only.”

“Tron. Speak of the devil. How is he?”

“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” Tron limped around the corner, leaning heavily on Cyrus.

“Ah, Tron. Cyrus.” Able nodded. 

The younger program beamed. “Hi, Able. It’s good to see you again.”

“You, too, kid.”

“Where’s Bit?”

“Bit is in the garage, keeping the mechanics in line.”

“Sounds about right,” Cyrus laughed, and began turn back around. “See you in a few nanos, Able, Tron still has one more lap to go.”

“Release me,” Tron ordered. “I must speak to Able about our plans.”

“If I do that, you’ll fall over,” Cyrus replied.

“Against a wall, you idiot.”

“This idiot saved your life.” Cyrus grinned, carefully lowering the older program to the floor. “This idiot’s teaching you how to walk again.”

“Hm.” Tron winced, leaning back against the wall. “Able, did you bring new energy? We are running low.”

“You’re welcome,” Cyrus said.

“Very low.” Tron crossed his arms.

“He says thank you,” Yori said.

Tron pressed his lips together, crossing his arms tighter, a protective barrier from some invisible danger.

“Yeah, I brought some.” Able jerked his thumb towards the entryway of the cave. “It’s in the truck if you want to bring that in, Cyrus.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you, Cyrus.”

“You’re welcome, Able!” Cyrus smiled. “See, that wasn’t too difficult, was it?”

“While we’re still young, Cyrus.” Able sat down beside Tron. “How are you holding up, program?”

“I’m fine.”

Able scanned him with a quick and practiced eye, adept at finding damaged code in vehicles and Betas. All he could see was exterior damage. Nothing on the inside—absolutely nothing. “I see you’ve got your scan-resistant shield up and running in full health, at least,” Able grunted.

“Save your vehicle scanner for the lightcycles,” Tron snapped. “I’m okay. I should be able to walk autonomously within the cycle.”

“Right.” Able shifted, lacing his fingers beneath his chin. “So. Tell me about these _plans_ you all have to overthrow Clu.”

Tron sighed, his gaze slipping into the middle ground.

“Not much to say, huh?” Yori plunked herself down on the ground beside him. “You should have been here earlier on in the cycle, Able. This guy finally got a full decicycle’s worth of rest. The instant he woke up, he was growlin‘ about truth and justice and freedom and—” Yori deepened her voice, gently poking Tron in the shoulder. “How dare that glitching Clu, who does he calculate he is anyway, he’s gonna, he’s gonna…” Getting no reaction from Tron, Yori straightened up turned back to Able. “So, I’m like, ‘Gonna what? Lead a revolution? Clu’s got half the Grid worshiping him, and the other half cowering in fear. Yeah, some of them will stand with us, but we need a plan. And we need it to be good.’”

“Well, let’s hear this plan,” Able said.

“That’s just it, we don’t have one,” Cyrus announced, reentering the hideout with a crateful of energy.

“Not _quite_ ,” Tron snapped. He bit the inside of his cheek. “We have the beginnings of one.”

“Each of us will play to our strengths,” Yori said. “Able, you and I are on recon. We’ll collect intel, win friends, and influence programs. Cyrus and Tron will be the warriors: they’ll go out into the Grid, distract the guards, defend the revolution and its assets, initiate strategic attacks…”

“Good.” Able nodded. “Play to our strengths is good. We can’t be too daring right now, there’s only four of us. But we can’t just go kicking around randomly in a vacuum, either.”

“Agreed,” Yori and Cyrus said, in unison.

“We gotta act in such a way that inspires others to join us, and hurts Clu in the process.”

Tron nodded, grunting in approval.

“Sounds good to me,” Yori said. “Well, programs? How are we gonna do it?”

“We gotta fight with ideas first,” Cyrus spoke up. “Then take action.”

“Bingo,” Able said. “We make Clu look bad, and make us look awesome.”

“We don’t have time to fight with ideas,” Tron said. “Every nano we delay, another ISO is killed. Another prisoner suffers under Dyson’s blade.”

“Well, we can’t just run into Clu’s fortress, discs blazing,” Able said. “We need to lay the groundwork first. Clu got to where he was with an idea. A lie, twisted to sound good. A lie that speaks to the deepest part of every Basic. _You belong here. These unnatural ISOs will steal your home._ ”

“Yes.” Cyrus nodded. “ _Unnatural_. Wrong. And since Flynn called them miraculous, we all started to feel that there must be something _wrong_ with Flynn as well.”

“Oh, anyone who knew him knew there was plenty wrong with Flynn,” Yori grinned. “Just… not in a corrupted, unnatural sense.”

“Let’s get back on topic,” Tron said. “Clu got to where he was by convincing the entire Grid that the ISOs are bad. What are we going to do, reverse the situation, convince the Grid that the ISOs are actually good?”

“Yes,” said Able.

Tron narrowed his eyes. “Do you honestly think anyone’s gonna buy that?”

“We need to be subtle,” Yori spoke up. “I’m sure there are programs out there who haven’t completely bought Clu’s lie. On some level, they must know that the ISOs are living entities who deserve compassion. So, we play to that.”

“Pro-ISO propaganda,” Cyrus said. “Diffie’s gonna love this. I’ll get them to help out, if possible.”

“Do you realize how long it might take us to spread enough propaganda to be effective?” Tron growled. “The Grid doesn’t have that kind of time.”

“ _We_ don’t have that kind of _power_ ,” Able said. “There’s only four of us, Tron.”

“Only four?” Tron leaned forward. “Do you know how many it took to take down the MCP? Four. Me, Yori, Flynn, Ram. That’s it. And Ram was derezzed halfway through.”

“Flynn was a User, so he counts for at least two,” Cyrus said.

Tron rounded on Cyrus. “Really? Because I only saw one pair of feet running away when Clu attacked.”

There was a brief silence, tense and awkward.

“Five,” Yori said, carefully breaking the quiet. “Five. We couldn’t have done it without Dumont.”

“Dumont.” Able nodded. “Good program.”

“Willing to die for the cause,” Yori added. “And why? Because of one powerful idea. It was the idea that carried all of us through that time: the MCP isn’t the greatest power out there. There’s something higher. _The Users_.”

Tron clenched his jaw, growling under his breath, a low, rattling sound that made Able shiver.

He shook off the chill. There were more important things to focus on. “Trust me,” he said. “We gotta be patient. All we can afford to be is sand in Clu’s gears. Ideas are what’s gonna win us this war. After all, it was an idea that defeated the MCP.”

“Well, Dumont’s not here,” Tron exploded. “There is no tower guardian, no I/O tower, no one listening on the other side. And while we waste time, putting out propaganda, getting allies—half of whom will most likely turn traitor before the cycle is up—Clu’s forces will run through the entire Grid, repurposing program after program, gutting them of every independent thought, turning them into mindless slaves.” He collapsed forward, completely out of breath, clutching his midsection.

Yori placed a steadying hand on his back.

“Repurposing, huh?” Able asked, knowing Tron wouldn’t appreciate pity from him. “Can Clu do that? Completely rewrite a program? I thought only the Users had that ability.”

“Oh, yeah,” Tron gasped. “He can do it.”

“Are you okay?” Cyrus, soft-voiced.

“I’m _fine_.” Grimacing, Tron fell back against the wall with a thud. “I don’t know how. I don’t know how _effectively_. But Clu’s figured out a way to do it.”

“How do you know?” Able asked, knowing the instant he asked that question, he’d regret it.

“I…” Tron lowered his head, clenching his fingers around his knees until the circuitry ran dark. “I watched him do it. Down in that prison, he made me _watch_ as he repurposed my entire security team.” He inhaled sharply. “Every last one of them.”

A chill ran down Able’s spine, but he kept his face calm.

Yori sat, openmouthed.

“Glitch,” Cyrus muttered. “All of them? _All_?”

Tron did not answer.

“Oh, Tron,” Able said, regret churning through him. “Program, I am so sorry. And Cyrus… _Users_.”

“It’s okay,” Cyrus said quickly, moving away from Able’s outstretched hand. “It’s… it’s okay.”

Tron took a deep breath. “Cyrus,” he said. “Help me stand.”

“Yes, sir,” Cyrus said, and lifted him to his feet. “Where are we going?”

Tron nodded towards the back of the hideout.

“The chamber?”

“Mhm.”

With an apologetic glance back towards Able, Cyrus carefully walked around the bend.

“He’s… not doing great, is he?” Able whispered, once the program in question was out of earshot.

Yori shook her head, and the lines of her shoulders drooped. “He’ll put up a shield against our scans, he’ll put on a brave face, but…” She shook her head again. “He can’t stay in sleep mode because of the nightmares. He can’t stay awake because of the power drain. He’s exhausted, and he blames himself for everything—and _everything_ just—keeps getting _worse_.”

“Mhm.” Able sighed. “Man, and I… it was awful of me, making him talk about it. But I had no idea! I had no idea. Did you know?”

“No.” Yori shook her head. “I didn’t. He hasn’t talked about what that glitching Clu did to him, and I haven’t asked, and I just…” Her shoulders hunched, circuits dimming. Sinking again, too tired for rage. “I just want to make it lighter for him, but there is nothing I can do. Nothing.”

Able narrowed his eyes. For all the cycles he’d known Yori, she’d always seemed to glow, bright and joyous, eternally hopeful, balancing her counterpart with perfect symmetry. Sassy when Tron was serious, warm when he was cold.

Something was different, now. The light was going dark. Able ached to see it, ached to make things right. “No, Yori, listen. You’re doing all you can and more. Knowing you’re there beside him? That’s just what he needs. Trust me. Just make sure you take care of yourself too, okay?”

Yori nodded, biting her lip, unable to speak.

“Uh-huh.” Able held out a hand. “Hey, come here.”

Yori rushed forward without question, and threw her arms around him.

“Take care of yourself, too,” Able repeated.

“Thank you,” she said, voice muffled and shaking. When she pulled away, her face was covered in tears, but her circuits were bright again. She pushed damp, flyaway strands of hair out of her face, and stood a little taller.

“That’s more like it,” Able said. “Now, I better be going soon, but before I leave, I gotta tell you some news.”

“Yeah.” Yori sniffed, rubbing her nose, looking up brightly. “What’s up?”

“Bit and I were talking—”

“As well as Bit can talk to anyone,” Yori grinned, rubbing her eyes.

“Bit is a loquacious little bugger,” Able said. “You’d be surprised. Carries a lot of feeling in that _YES_ and _NO_.”

“Indeed,” Yori laughed. “So. What were you guys chattering about?”

“Our first ally.”

“Well, that’s good news!” Yori exclaimed. “Who?”

“Take a wild guess.”

Yori gasped, her facing lighting up. “ _Ram_.”

“Bingo. Heh. Ram went into hiding shortly after the coup. Program was a whole mess when I found him. He was up to his neck in rumors and theories, figured Flynn and Tron were both still alive, captured by Clu, and he was going right out of his mind trying to puzzle out what our favorite Sysadmin was doing to them.”

“Oh, poor Ram.”

“I put his mind at ease. Told him Tron was safe, Flynn was alive, and we got an uprising on our hands. Told him any resources or allies he could find are quite welcome. Since then, well, he’s been… busy.”

“Ram is—is— _exactly_ what we need right now,” Yori said. “Long-term planning—Ram _thrives_ on it. Oh, Able, this is excellent.”

“Don’t thank me. It was Bit’s idea, originally.”

Cyrus came back into the room, his face weary. “Bit’s idea originally?” he sighed. “This ought to be good.”

“It is,” Yori said. “Ram’s joined the uprising.”

“Ram?” Cyrus wrinkled his forehead.

“Actuarial program with an uncanny talent for hacking,” Yori said. “I think he came by the security center a few times to run some defense/offense drills with you.”

Cyrus nodded, his gaze going somewhere different.

“Cyrus… are you okay?” Yori began. “The security team… that was _your_ team, too.”

Cyrus looked at the ground, fiddling with an uneven ridge of rock with the toe of his shoe. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s… it’s…” He took a deep breath, kicking a hexagonal rock free. “At least _I’m_ not the one that had to watch the repurposing. I’ll be fine.” He folded his arms. “Besides, it’s not like they’re derezzed. I bet they’re still in there. Somewhere. There’s no way can Clu just… _delete_ code without derezzing. No. He doesn’t have the permissions. He’s just put in an override. They’re still in there. I know they are.”

Able raised an eyebrow. The kid was trying to convince himself just as much as the others. Still, vain hope was better than no hope, that was Able’s opinion. Besides, there was always a chance that Cyrus might be right. He remained silent.

Cyrus snapped his fingers. “Oh, wait, Ram, isn’t that the guy who taught us how to break into a Recognizer and disrupt the navigation system?”

“Uh…”

“Disc spin guy.” Cyrus took his disc from its dock and spun it around in a circle. It made one complete revolution before flying out of control and crashing into Able’s ankle.

“Gah! Yeah, that’s Ram,” Able said, picking up Cyrus’ disc. “Except he never hit _me_ with a disc.”

Cyrus winced. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re fine, kid.” Able clapped Cyrus on the shoulder and handed him back his disc. “Well, I gotta be going. I’ll touch base with Ram, keep Bit out of trouble, keep an eye out for allies. As for you, fellow renegades…” Able pulled Cyrus and Yori into a hug. “Stay strong. So long as we keep the spirit of rebellion alive, Clu will never have full power over the Grid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Tron.  
> Anyway.  
> Remember that bit in chapter 3 with Clu and the Recognizer? Yeah...


	19. Trust

The ceiling above the healing chamber was full of cracks.

Tron nearly had them memorized; a map of brokenness.

He lay flat in the energy chamber, focusing on those cracks, longing for sleep mode. Distance. Silence. Deep, dark oblivion. It was no use. Every time he was almost gone, the sound of the chamber’s filter morphed into the scream of Dyson’s blade, and he saw _their_ faces in the cracks, those blank, mind-gutted faces.

He’d flinch awake once more, mind awash with static.

If it was all in his mind, he could take it. But it wasn’t all in his mind. It wasn’t just some dream of the past.

It was real. It was happening then. The torture, the repurposing. It was happening all across the Grid, _right then_. Hundreds of other programs were suffering, derezzing, being repurposed. Everything they had been... everything they might have become... gone. He had to get out of there, had to return to the city, put a disc through Clu’s irrational, power-hungry head, and stop it all.

For the fourth time that milli, he raised shivering arms to the sides of the tank, and held on. Pain, raw and loud, tore through each finger at the pressure points and up his arms, straight into his core like a disc, like Clu’s disc.

“No,” he hissed, clenching his teeth, pushing harder. He could do it. He could sit up. He had to, the system needed him.

Three failures, _this_ time he’d do it.

The pain grew worse as he raised himself from the energy field. The damaged code lining his injuries flickered and sparked like dozens of tiny living things, frantically trying to burrow back into him.

He was breathing too fast, and then he couldn’t breathe at all, shivering so badly, he had to stop shaking, had to sit up now before he lost his grip.

And then, something in him moved, a little click, like a tiny block of data splitting in half. His fingers slipped on the side of the chamber and he fell back, every pixel on fire.

There was an ache in his throat worse than any of his injuries, and he wanted to scream, scream and break things, but that wouldn’t heal him, wouldn’t destroy Clu, wouldn’t bring back his team.

This… was… _pathetic_.

It had been millicycles since the coup, and he still couldn’t manage to get better. Between the wound in his abdomen and those ever-so-thoughtful upgrades made to his code by dear old Dyson, his self-repair protocols were no good. His energy distribution processes were, to use a Flynn phrase, screwed seven ways from Sunday. It was all he could do to keep his shields operational; the others had enough to worry about without knowing he was still slowly derezzing inside. They’d panic. They’d go for a medic, who would likely report directly back to Clu. At this point, he doubted a medic would be any good. What he needed was a User.

That’s what he needed.

That’s what they all needed, wasn’t it? The irony was unbearable.

 _Alert_.

Footfalls, from the front of the room. Someone was here. He tensed— _alert, alert, alert_ —channeling all his strength into the attack, circuits pulsing brighter and brighter.

Through the bright, bitter surge of _alert_ , he saw it. A pair of eyes, peering over the wall of the chamber.

Blue eyes… beautiful… familiar.

“Hey, you,” Yori said.

He sighed. Not an enemy. Only Yori. Only Yori.

There was sharp pain, then, like a gridbug had made a nest beneath his insignia, hatched its eggs, and sent its offspring out through his circuits on sharp, tiny legs, trailing exhaustion. What was it she wanted this time? What was it? Be nicer to Cyrus? Be nicer to Able? Rest more? Smile more? Compliment my wall décor more?

_No!_

Tron sniffed, shaking his head, clearing the thoughts. What was _wrong_ with him? Nowhere, in any system, was there such a program as Yori. She was so beautiful, and kind, and he didn’t deserve her, this program with intelligence that ran in deep, wild-ranging ways. She reached up and found connections he could never see. A program among programs, that was certain, and he… _ungrateful, weak_ … why did she still stick by him?

Yori settled down beside the chamber, gripping the wall. “Are you okay?”

He swallowed hard, wishing she’d would go away, terrified she’d never return.

“Hey… come back.” She was reaching out for him, one hand trailing along the energy’s bubbling surface.

He really wouldn’t blame her if she never returned.

In a great surge of loneliness, he took her hand, pressing it against his insignia, desperately.

“ _There_ you are,” Yori whispered.

He closed his good eye, overaware of the brightness of her fingertips as her other hand traced across the right side of his face.

“I’ve got you,” she said. “I’ve got you.”

She was touching him. She was right there. And yet, she was a million systems away. The touch on his face was too much, and he flinched away from her.

“I have good news,” she said, quietly, trailing fingers through the energy field instead. “Ram’s alive.”

Tron opened his eye. He’d been trying not to think of Ram. He’d been trying _really_ hard not to think of Ram. Oh, Clu would love to get his hands on the rebellious, tricky little hacktuary. Ram was pretty much the antithesis of all Clu considered _perfect_ and _orderly_.

“Alive,” Tron breathed, and the word, the word in connection with Ram, pulled him back against the pain, back towards the cave and the energy chamber and Yori.

“Yes,” Yori said. “Alive, and well, and very much in hiding. Able and Bit have recruited him for the revolution.”

Tron sighed.

“Tron, was that a real smile I saw?” Yori’s hand fluttered in the energy field, sending little sparks of panic along his arm. “We’re gonna have to sneak Ram in here for a visit.”

Tron thought about how it was just Yori’s hand, just Yori, only Yori. He forced his thoughts back to Ram. The program had made an excellent renegade in the old system; it would be no different here. No matter where he went, he kept the others in good spirits. He would be of good practical use, too; he was a planner, Ram was, and he’d been an excellent help in designing training plans.

Always talking about the big picture, the end goal. Always rising above the details, seeing beyond.

A strange ache spread through him, settling deep within, alive, sharp as the edge of a disc, pushing tears into his good eye. Something was breaking inside, and it felt like derezzing. At least Ram would be around to help Yori carry on the uprising, after he was gone.

Ram, so hopeful and happy and mischievous. Would he ever see Ram again?

“Tron,” Yori said, in an odd voice. “Drop your shield.”

He looked up at her, clenching his teeth, fighting to keep his breathing even.

“I want to scan you. Please, let me.”

He glared at her. Her hand weighed heavily against his insignia, like an entire Recognizer had landed on his chest.

“Please,” Yori whispered. “Let me see.”

Tron closed his eyes and relented. One by one, he relaxed the processes holding the shield’s layers in place, leaving himself open. He’d held the shields up for so long, the new lightness was almost unbearable. Almost. The sensation of Yori’s scan a few moments later, _that_ was unbearable. It was so light, gentle and searing at once. She saw everything, every damaged process, every scrambled subroutine, every broken thing. She saw right into the collapsing core of his being.

It was shameful. So shameful. He wanted to hide, invisibly crumbling behind the shields once more, but there was no more energy left to pull the shields back into place. He could only lie there open, completely bare, completely broken. What must she think of him? What must she think? She must be so disgusted. So horrified.

Why didn’t she close her eyes?

Why didn’t she _look away_?

“I love you,” she said, simply. Her scan held, unwavering. “Always have, always will.” She blinked. The unbearable strength of her scan faded, leaving behind the echo of her warm signature. She nodded. “I love you, program.”

For the first time in cycles, he began to weep. He wasn't sure if he would ever stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah.. this one was difficult to write


	20. Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For cycles, Tron has burned with questions about the mysterious Users. Only now, when it’s too late, does he manage to ask them.

The last time he’d been this upset had been back in the Encom system, shortly after hearing the news that Flynn was saving him from deletion by moving him somewhere far away. It wasn’t the move itself that did it, but the news that came with it: Yori was also scheduled for deletion, but Flynn wasn’t sure if he would be able to save her as well.

Tron had tried to stay calm as he relayed the message to Yori; the truth that they were both scheduled for decommission and deletion, but only Tron’s safety was ensured. Tron told her about his transgression, how he followed Flynn all the way back to the portal, questioning him—questioning a user!—bargaining with him, pleading with him, to please, _please_ save Yori.

And she’d done what she did best when the situation got too heavy to bear. She made light of it. Cracked a joke about Flynn’s Swiss-cheese memory, yeah, we’ll see if he even remembered her name on the other side.

Instead of smiling, he burst into tears, wrapping her in a crushing grip, begging her not to say that, don’t say that, don’t _ever_ say that.

In the end, it had turned out all right. Flynn _did_ remember her, and saw to it that she was moved over right after Tron. Yori had a suspicion that Flynn moved her without her user’s consent, but it didn’t bother her much. She was beginning to have skeptical thoughts about the supposedly “all-knowing” users.

After that, Tron’s outbursts were only of the irritated kind.

It had been awhile.

It hurt to see him so upset, but she knew him well, knew the best thing to do was stay silent and wait it out. So she waited, quiet and steadfast, until he was calm again.

He looked up at her, finally meeting her eyes. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered.

“I know.” It ached to smile, but Yori tried anyway. “So are you.”

He sniffed, and his gaze sharpened, searching her expression.

“Does it feel lighter?” she asked.

His forehead wrinkled. “Does what feel lighter?”

“Always so literal.” Again, she tried to smile. Her lip was cracked. “I meant… I meant, do you feel better now?”

His grip tightened on her hand, but he said nothing. And he continued to say nothing, only studied her with an expression she knew well. There was something he wanted to say, something difficult, and he was trying to find the right way to say it. She stayed quiet, waiting.

“Yori,” he began. “Do you think it was wrong of me to leave the old system and come here… to protect this one instead?”

“ _Wrong_ of you?” Yori wrinkled her forehead. “No. The users had no use for us in the Encom system. Flynn said we had to come here.”

“Hm.”

“Why do you ask?”

Tron winced. “ _Dyson_ had a lot of things to say to me, back there. The _traitor_. I tried not to listen to his idiotic, traitorous… mouth flapping, but…”

Tron looked back at her, and Yori’s circuits ran cold at what she saw in his face. “What did he say?” she pressed.

“He spoke of my faithfulness. To the Users. _‘Where are they now?_ ’ He wouldn’t stop asking that. _‘Where have they been for the last 120 cycles?’_ He spoke of my User, Yori. Alan—” Tron swallowed hard. “Alan-One. _‘He’s been silent to you, Tron. They all have. They’ve left us.’_ And he was right. I used to get updates from my User regularly. But ever since we followed Flynn to the Grid… 120 cycles ago… silence.”

Yori gently ran her hand across his insignia, causing little waves in the energy field, trying to find something worth saying. She had never gotten much feedback from Lora-Prime, not even during digitizations. She had always liked that, the freedom and space her user gave her when she was off-duty. Like most programs, Yori had a healthy respect for the being that had created her, but she hardly missed it at all when the messages stopped coming. For Tron, who had always held such unbreakable devotion… the silence must have been devastating. Why had he never mentioned this before?

“Did you ever ask Flynn about this?” she asked.

“ _Yes_ ,” Tron snapped, and bit the inside of his cheek. In a softer voice, he added, “Flynn never gave me a straight answer.”

“Typical,” Yori muttered. She’d had it with Flynn, the user who ran.

“I longed to seek out my User,” Tron continued. “Before this. But it didn’t seem right, it wasn’t my place, so I never did. Never. Until I was in Dyson’s prison, trapped in that…” He went tense, crying out between clenched teeth.

“Tron.” Yori’s circuits ran bright with alarm. “Are you—”

“I called to him,” Tron growled. “After… that— _traitor_ mangled my code beyond repair, after Clu’s bit-brained followers nearly burned the sense out of me, after they left me alone to watch…” He cut himself off, closing his good eye. “You bet I called to him. From the… _deepest_ part of my being, Yori, I called to him. There was only silence. Why wouldn’t he answer? Where has he gone? Where have all of them gone?”

Yori was quiet. She had a theory, but she couldn’t tell if it would help, or only hurt him further. There were many visible differences between the Encom system and the Grid. Perhaps there were invisible differences, as well. “The configuration of this system is different from that of the Encom system,” she said, gently. “I/O rules are different here. Maybe… this is a place Alan-One cannot reach us.”

“I feared the same thing.” Tron gripped her hands with desperate strength. “What am I supposed to do, Yori?” he said. “If we are in a place the Users cannot reach… if they’re gone or—or if they really have left us… if they see no use for us…” He paused, trying to keep control. “What does it mean anymore? _I fight for the Users_. What does it mean? How can I fight for them if they no longer fight for us?”

Yori closed her eyes against the terrible despair on his face. She wanted to fix this. She wanted to fix _him_. But how…? _How_? The physical injuries would heal, but a core part of his directive had been destroyed.

“I don’t…” He shivered. “I don’t know what to do.”

His directive. Yori’s mind raced. There had to be an answer. What was it Flynn always used to say? No problems, only solutions?

Where was Flynn? Why wasn’t he here? Why wasn’t he _fixing_ this?

_Focus, Yori._

Tron’s directive was not simply _I fight for the users_ , she knew that much. That was only the part he upheld most proudly, only the line of thinking that got him through the MCP’s games (that, and the hope of seeing Yori again, according to him).

Yes, Yori had to admit, fighting for the users was central to his being. But it was not the _only_ part of his being.

“Tron,” Yori ordered. “Breathe. Tell me your directive. The whole thing. All of it.”

An entire nanocycle of silence passed.

“I maintain the security of the Grid,” Tron said in a hollow, broken sort of way. “I scan for unusual or threatening behavior. If I detect it, I investigate, and if a threat is found, I… I neutralize it.” A tear slid down the undamaged side of his face. “I uphold the integrity of the Grid, and ensure that… ensure that… no… _programs_ overstep their authority. I protect the Grid, and fight for the memory of those who created… it and the entities within it. I fight… I fight for the Users.”

Yori’s spine prickled with slow-growing horror as he spoke. In failing to stop Clu, Tron had failed his directive at nearly every point—and the only part he hadn’t entirely failed had been rendered obsolete. No wonder he was derezzing from the inside-out.

_Ooookay, Yori, think this one through. Come on. There is a solution. There’s always a solution._

“Perhaps the users do not _need_ to be fought for anymore,” she said, slowly, carefully. “But the Grid? The Grid needs a defender, now more than ever. Clu is powerful, and Clu is corrupt. Think about that first part of your directive. If ever the system needed you, it’s now. You may have lost this battle with Clu, but it doesn’t mean you’ve failed the system, or failed the users that put you here. One battle does not decide the war.”

Tron looked up at her, jaw set, longing to believe.

Yori found his hand, and held on, resolute. “We are going to beat him, Tron. _We’re going to beat him._ Fair and square, I don’t care what it takes. He’s going down. But not now. For now, you will rest, and heal, until you are well again.” Gently, she brushed his hair from his forehead. “Don’t give up on me, yeah?”

He took a deep, shuddering breath, expression hardening in determination. “Never,” he promised her.

And she knew he meant it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and now, finally, I think it's time things started looking brighter for our renegades...


	21. Ram

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Tron in need of medical assistance, and the revolution in need of allies, Cyrus goes on a mission to find Ram. This may prove difficult, as the Grid is in great unrest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possible TW: Cyrus witnesses some violence smack in the middle of this chapter.

Cyrus sped over the Outlands, kicking up gravel and debris, back towards the land of the legally rezzed. He’d zigzagged down from the mountain, rain splattering in hexagonal blips across the lightcycle’s windshield. The droplets fizzled away in half a nano, leaving the view clear. Able’s experimentations with windshield material had paid off.

Rounding the bend, Cyrus could see it through the haze of rain: the great, golden mouth of Purgos, glowing at the base of the valley, with fortified turrets for teeth. He wished he were back at the hideout.

Back there, Tron would be resting, and Yori would be building simulations. She was as full of ideas as Flynn, with ten times the success rate. Just in the last millicycle, she’d papered the cave walls with various camouflage designs, and set up wireframes for four different sims—a telescope sim, a combat training sim, an exercise sim, a graffiti sim. The hideout was littered with her wireframes; a program couldn’t turn around without tripping on them. It drove Able to distraction, but Cyrus liked it. Surprisingly, so did Tron; he said it reminded him of home.

Able said he’d blow a processor if his garage ever looked like that, and went about arranging Yori’s inventions into neatly zipped packages, lined up against the cave wall.

“I had no idea you were such a neat freak,” Yori said.

“ _Someone’s_ gotta be around here,” Able shot back.

Then Yori would think of more improvements, and the sims always ended up unzipped again.

\--

Cyrus’ eyes caught on something, shaking him from the memory. Orange flecks hung in the sky over the city, undying embers moving along a steady plane. _Recognizers._

Visibility was improving. If he could see the recognizers, anyone on the recognizers could see him. Luckily, Able had been working on more than just windshield mods. He’d finally figured out how to dim the lightcycle’s circuits without overpowering the engine. Cyrus’ shifted his lightcycle into shadow and soared down the bumpy road towards the city, faster and faster, invisible, trying to outride the sense that something awful awaited him in the city below.

“Users, Cyrus,” he whispered, shaking his head. “It’s nothing. It’s nothing. Once you’re in, that’s it. Just find Ram, and everything will be okay.”

\--

They’d gone over the plan dozens of times throughout the last millicycle.

Tron had the sharpest memory of the four, but Yori was the only one who could make a decent map. She’d pieced together a map of Purgos, left hand flicking through Purgos-related memories on Tron’s disc, right hand feverishly drawing up a simulation of the city; buildings, streets, ducts, alleys, tunnels. Once she was done, the four of them gathered around the map, scoping out places of low visibility.

Cyrus had been silent as he studied the map, but his mind was loud, flinging out disaster scenarios on rapid-fire. He could hold his own against one, two, maybe even three programs, but what if he was cornered by a whole squadron of them? With tanks? What if they had tanks?

What if he was repurposed?

He’d zoned out then, staring right through the map, imagining what repurposing would feel like. Did it hurt? Did it hurt when their free will was taken from them? Did it hurt when Clu’s instructions were piped in? Or did everything suddenly become nothing at all? It would be a better fate to just stop existing. Cyrus realized, then, that someone had been calling his name. He turned.

Tron was watching him, leaning heavily against the wall. “Cyrus, are you all right?”

Cyrus nodded quickly, standing up straight. “Yeah, yeah. Just thinking about the mission.”

“Fine,” Tron said, crossing his arms. “Just make sure you don’t _over_ think it. You’re gonna be fine.”

 _Easy for you to say. You’re Tron_. Cyrus only shrugged.

“I know your abilities, Cyrus,” Tron continued. “You’ve trained for this since the moment you arrived in the Grid. You will not fail.”

\--

“Well, Tron,” Cyrus muttered to nobody, “I hope you’re right.”

Out among the rocks and the rain, Cyrus could see the twisting ribbon of road, worming over the dark fields and in through the Outlands gate. It was dotted with vehicles, bottlenecked at the great gates. Squinting hard, Cyrus saw guards at the gate, five or six of them. Sparse orange circuitry cut like gashes through their armor, as though there was nothing inside but fire.

_Fire burned. Fire purified. Fire made it so that you could start anew._

“ _Users_ , Cyrus.” He shook his head, hard. “Less waxing eloquent about fire, more getting into the city unnoticed.”

Fortunately, he wouldn’t be entering through the Outlands gate. Veering off-road, Cyrus inched his way down the foot of the mountain until he saw the deep, dark wash of the Sea in the distance.

The Sea-facing gate doubled as a refuse line; as the vehicles struggled in over the road, unrecyclable data was sent out underneath. Unusable file fragments, pieces of malware-corrupted infrastructure, Bits that had gone cold and inactive without derezzing, irreparable lightcycle batons. The usual. All of it was rushed out of the city, tossed into a trench surrounding it, and processed—crushed down, cleaned of malware, and burned.

There weren’t many programs near that trench, but there were plenty of tunnels. They fed in and out and around the purifying mechanisms, reminding Cyrus of codeworms. The whole place stunk of refuse, flooded with the smoke of burning data.

Cyrus crept through the labyrinth, helmet rezzed to avoid breathing in the smoke of burning data. Deep in the smoke, viruses lurked. He could sense them in the core of his being. A virus detection kit had been his original purpose, and every line of his base code was screaming.

 _Stay calm_ , Cyrus ordered himself. _Think through it. Logically._

The half-formed viruses that amassed in places like this were likely not equipped to detect a virus detection kit. Between the smoke, and the mask over his circuits, no one could see him. That was one good thing about the smoke.

He made it into the city through a duct slippery with code that had once been spyware, and climbed up into a yard full of broken-suited programs, leaning lazily against darkened wireframes. The programs weren’t overly concerned with him. Cyrus studied them behind his helmet’s opacity. He’d mimic their style, blend in better. Their circuitry was wild and shredded looking, dim yellow in color. Cyrus figured if he set his circuits to the orange of his sentry programming, raising his shield to its second highest setting, he could approximate their colors.

As soon as he was out of sight, he made the necessary adjustments, and slunk onto the street, pushing Yori’s map simulation to the corner of his vision.

He hadn’t been to Purgos in ages, but the city he held in his memory was quite different than the one unfolding around him. The air was thick with burning things. Recognizers prowled overhead and there was screaming in the streets. Sentries were bashing in doors, in search of ISOs and insurgents. Programs kept running past him, brushing hard against his shoulders, faces contorted in horror, confusion, fury.

Cyrus kept to the shadows, senses on high alert, picking his way down the path towards Ram’s dwelling. He hoped, desperately, that the program was still alive in the madness.

He was only a block or two from the destination when a roar of orange shot past his left shoulder, veering back around on itself, sending up a gleaming wall of orange light. Before Cyrus could react, a blue lightcycle careened into the square, wobbling, out of control, and crashed into the orange wall, showering blue light in every direction. Its unfortunate rider flew over the barrier and landed, stunned.

Cyrus looked around quickly, sizing up the area. Ram’s hideout was just on the other side of the altercation. He could risk moving, backing up and finding an alternate route, or he could stay still, hidden in the shadow.

Orange sentries swarmed in from every direction—five, six, _seven_ in total, all armed with lightstaffs—and Cyrus elected to wait.

The blue circuited program had come to. “I’ve done nothing,” she cried, pushing herself up on one arm. The crash had injured the other one; Cyrus saw jagged cracks, saw the crystalline blue leaking down onto the street. “Please, I’ve done nothing!”

One of the sentries pushed her down into her own voxels, clamping a hand down on her face as another removed her disc. Beneath their hands, Cyrus could still hear the muffled scream as she pleaded for her life.

“Search the disc for slander against the Luminary,” boomed a sentry’s voice, deep and distorted by the mask, and a sharp chill ran down Cyrus’ spine. The distortion was designed to intimidate—he’d used it himself as a sentry—but hearing it from the outside added a sharper dimension of horror.

The program was struggling, one arm free and flailing. One sentry lifted a heavy boot, and—“ _Comply!_ ”—let it fall with a sickening thud. The program’s arm derezzed, crumbling to cyan light.

The sight of it set Cyrus' hands shaking and made him sick inside. He pressed against the wall, hard, and forced himself to look away. The program’s screaming tore at him—would it be such a bad idea to rezz up his lightcycle and race to the rescue?

Yes. Logic was louder than the screams, and logic told him to remember his limits. There were seven sentries. He’d trained with such sentries—he’d _been_ one of them. He knew what it was like to fight them. The most he’d ever been able to beat at one time was four, and that had only been a training exercise. No active lightstaffs, no active discs.

No. Cyrus was not going to jeopardize the mission for one program.

There was a light tap on his shoulder. “Hey. What’s going on?”

Cyrus whirled, hand at his disc dock in an instant.

The other program was smaller than him, helmeted, striped in circuits of deep green. “What’s going on over there?” the program asked again.

Cyrus scanned, quick and sharp, searching for an identity.

“Hey, whoa, buddy, you can just ask my name, no need to get all _scanny_ on me.”

Cyrus ignored him, still scanning for identity. There was some kind of obscuring filter in the way. Everything was pinging back jumbled.

Behind him, in the square, the sentries were arresting the unfortunate program, shouting something about imprisonment on charges of noncompliance and disturbing the peace.

“Finished scanning me yet?” the green program asked, mockery plain in his voice.

“Just about,” Cyrus returned with a grin, raising the power of his scanner to full sentry permissions.

“ _Really_?” The program crossed his arms. “You’re gonna _sentrify_ me?”

“RAM-ES-71999-2,” Cyrus said, and froze. “ _Ram_?”

“Cyrus.”

“How did you know my name?”

“Well, trusted sources tell me that CYRUS-VDK is a sentry, and you just hit me with a standard sentry-level scan. Trusted sources also say CYRUS-VDK is dead, or worse, in hiding with notorious renegade _Tron._ Guess who I just found sort-of-very-clearly hiding from the sentries! You do the math.”

“Oh.”

“Also, I tapped you, remember?”

“Huh?”

Ram reached over, and tapped Cyrus’ shoulder.

Now that the assault in the square wasn’t taking up his full attention, Cyrus felt it; the faint twinge of a hacker’s identification scan. “I see.”

“Well!” Ram crossed his arms, rocking back onto his heels. “Now that we’re all acquainted and stuff, follow me. Think we’ve got some stuff to discuss.”

Cyrus nodded, and followed.

-

The place Ram took him was several layers underground, and cold. The only light as they descended the stairs was from the little green lines of circuitry on the railing.

“Smart of you to change your circuitry color to orange,” Ram said. “They’ve been rounding up all the blues. It’s awful, what the Grid’s turned into.” His shoulders drooped. “I hate it, Cyrus.”

“Is that why you went green? You were a blue the last time I saw you.”

“Hm… I like green. And I like surviving. So… you could say that. Most programs here are going silver-circuited.” Ram paused to undo a lock.

Cyrus had been keeping track; they’d encountered seven doors so far, each one secured by an elaborate lock that only a program of Ram’s caliber could put in place. Whatever Ram was hiding, it was important.

“How’s… How’s Tron and Yori?” Ram asked.

“They’re good,” Cyrus said. “Yori’s good, at least. Busy making sims.” He smiled. “So. Many. Sims.”

“Yeah.” Ram chuckled. “That does sound like Yori. Tron used to say she had a lot of User in her. Always creating. Speaking of Tron. Heard Clu messed him up something awful.”

“You hear correctly.”

“How is he?”

“He’s okay now.” Cyrus thought about it. Tron still couldn’t walk unassisted, but his injuries didn’t seem to hurt him any longer. He never complained, never said a word about the coup or Dyson or the security team. He seemed to feel nothing. “Pretty sure he’s getting better,” Cyrus shrugged. "Yori and Able redesigned the healing chamber to be upright instead of horizontal, so that’s helped a lot.”

“Hmm. Able. How do you know him?”

“He used to visit the security center,” Cyrus said. “He, Tron, and Yori were good friends. He’d gather up all of our broken lightcycles in the back of his truck, and he’d lecture Tron about not disciplining us more. You should have seen it. The truck was always so overloaded.” Cyrus stopped talking, filling with an awful emptiness he didn’t want to linger on. Not yet. No time for that. He crossed his arms tightly, fingers digging into his sides, in the way Tron often stood. “Sure is cold down here.”

“Yeah, it’s uh…” Ram raised his eyebrows. “It’s hard to tell, but as we get deeper, we go further away from the city center, out towards the Outlands. Less energy to go around out there. Anyway. Tell me about Clueless the Luminary. What was it like, being a sentry for him?”

“Eh, it was okay. Never actually saw him.”

“You must have heard _stories_ , though, from programs on the inside!”

“Yeah… yeah, I heard plenty about him. He’s a weird, weird program.”

“Oh, well I’m shocked.” Ram giggled as he undid an eighth lock, circuits brightening for a moment as he slid the last elaborate piece into place. “Tell me more.”

“Well… he’s really into games,” Cyrus began. “He has a lot of User games in his… place of residence? Palace? Whatever. Games that Flynn told him about.”

“User games!” Ram exclaimed. “You know, according to Flynn, my User likes solitaire.”

“What’s solitaire?”

“I have no idea!” Ram laughed, and then his tone shifted to utmost reverence. “I only know this: it was a favorite of RoyK912’s.”

“RoyK912!” Cyrus exclaimed. “Your User?”

“Yes. My User.” Ram sighed, and Cyrus thought he saw a touch of sadness in the program’s features. In a moment, Ram redoubled his pace, smiling more brightly than ever. “We’re almost there. Tell me more about Clueless.”

“He… uh… he has a lot of ideas about how the Grid should be run… improving energy efficiency, retraining data pushers, and all that. Um, what else… He visited the prisons sometimes when we were interrogating prisoners… he likes a show.”

“Yugh,” Ram shivered.

“He’s unsettling to be around. Any program who could calculate two doubles was wary of rising too high within Clu’s ranks… didn’t want to be too close to him. He’s volatile. And brilliant.” Cyrus shook his head. “Some programs say that he sings. Not program songs, either. User songs. Little snippets of them… all full of words that don’t make any sense.”

“Hmm. Gets that from Flynn, you know. The Creator used to sing, back in the early days. He used to sing. Tron would drive him nuts; he’d stop Flynn every other word— _What does that mean?_ And Flynn would wave his hands, he’d close his eyes, you know, like _Aw, come on man, it’s hard to explain_ or _Eh, it doesn’t really matter_. And Tron being Tron, he’d come back with _Well, try_ or _Yes, it does_. And Flynn would wave him off, and Tron would get irritated, and so on, and so on. I just liked to listen to the words and imagine for myself what they meant, you know? Like… _jungle_.” Ram turned to Cyrus, eyes wide and brimming with wonder. “What in glitching goodness is _jungle_? I don’t know! I… I don’t know. I imagine it’s something like a… like a valley full of _stalagbytes_.”

Cyrus nodded.

“Poor Tron, though. Never satisfied to just imagine. He always wanted to know what it all really meant.” Ram sighed. “Ooooookay. Here we are. Brace yourself, program—I’ve been _prepping_.”

Cyrus braced himself.

Ram undid the lock, and the door slid away, revealing a narrow path, stretching out into the darkening distance. “Careful, now. It’s a long way down if you fall, and I don't feel like scrubbing voxels out of injector bins today. Hold the railing. There you go.”

Cyrus inched along the path, looking down into the abyss. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could make out a neatly organized maze in the dark, laid out like a little city: buildings of equipment, streets of soft, green circuitry. “Whoa,” Cyrus mumbled. His mouth had gone dry. “Whoa.” After nearly half a cycle in the cave, this was pure extravagance. “Ram, how…? How long?”

“Couple cycles,” Ram said, nodding, rocking back and forth from heel to toe to heel again. “S… Seven. Seven cycles.”

“ _Seven cycles_ ,” Cyrus repeated.

Ram scratched the end of his nose. “Always… best to be prepared.”

“Ram, this is amazing, this is _perfect_ , how did you know?”

“Being prepared… ensuring a safe and comfortable future… it’s _baked_ into me. See, I’m not just a hacker program. Nuh-uh. I was an actuarial program, originally. My—my User designed me to help other Users plan for a well-insured future, but he figured, you know, while he’s at it, why not get an eye into the inner workings of the MCP? So.” Ram shrugged. “It’s in the code.”

“And here I thought you were just another program Tron brought in to teach us how to hack Recognizers.” Cyrus was full of awe. “An actuarial program. Programs that helped _Users_ predict the future. I didn’t know they really existed.”

“Oh, we exist all right!” Ram crowed, swinging his arms. “Or—at least—we _did_. I don’t know anymore, never met another actuarial in this system. And it’s not exactly predicting the future, it’s… ensuring they can still survive in the worst possible scenarios. Financially.”

“I see,” said Cyrus. _Financially_. He’d puzzle that one out later. “Well, Ram, what’ve we got down here?”

“Hmm… equipment. Condensed energy. Medical supplies. Batons for various vehicles… fuel for various vehicles. Replacement parts. Building reinforcements. Construction equipment.”

“Medical supplies,” Cyrus muttered. “I wonder…”

“Yes.” Ram turned quickly. “Do you need them?”

“Well, yes. Tron does.”

“Could’ve guessed. What’s the matter with him?”

“Hard to say. I mean, he seems fine, but it’s been a quarter cycle, and he still can’t walk on his own.”

“Oh…”

“He doesn’t ever complain, so it can't be that bad, but he can’t be away from the healing chamber for more than a millicycle. And I heard Yori talking about it with Able, about getting some kind of… something. Energy injector. Something like that. She sounded worried, but they wouldn’t tell me when I asked. Users, they treat me like a Beta sometimes.”

“And you’re not?” Ram smiled, wryly.

“Not anymore!” Cyrus stretched up to his full height, towering above Ram. “I had my full Basic ceremony twelve cycles ago. First of the security team to go through it, by the way.”

“Oh,” Ram said, grinning mischievously. “ _Twelve_. My bad.”

He’d said _twelve_ like it wasn’t much at all, but Cyrus let it slide. “It’s okay,” he said. “How many cycles have you been full Basic, anyway?”

“Hmm.” Ram’s grin grew wider. “More than twelve. I was put into the Encom system before Tron, after all.”

“Users, you are legacy code!”

“Yeah, but he’s passed me up in age. I was glitchin‘ _derezzed_ for a few hundred cycles. Gave him time to catch up. It’s been only… twenty? Twenty-one? Yeah, twenty-one cycles since rerezz.” Ram yawned, stretching his arms up towards the ceiling. "That makes me fifty-one cycles old, altogether."

“Fifty-one!” Cyrus exclaimed. 

"More or less. Does it show?" Ram grinned. And then a light came into his eyes, and he snapped his fingers. “I bet Yori was talking about an energy implant.”

Cyrus blinked. “Huh?”

Ram placed his hand on his midsection. “Was Tron injured _here_?”

Cyrus nodded.

“Oh.” Ram winced. “Yeah. See, when a program’s energy distribution processes are messed up, medics will sometimes give ’em an energy implant. Helps circulate energy, gets them through the cycle. Sometimes, they can even heal completely and never need it again.”

“How do you know these things?” Cyrus asked, rubbing his forehead.

“I’m legacy code, remember? Come on! I’ll give you four.” Ram took off down the narrow platform.

“Wait,” Cyrus called after Ram. “How do you use the implant? None of us are medics.”

“It’s not hard,” Ram said, turning down a steep staircase. “Just give the implant to Yori. She’s done it before.”

“Just give it to Yori, okay.”

“Yeah. It’s not hard… not hard at all, but you’ll need to get back fast. You don’t mess around with a busted energy distribution system.”

Deep inside, Cyrus felt a little thump of dread.

“So. No time to lose. Let’s discuss plans! When do you programs expect to arrive in the city?”

“A quarter cycle from now.”

“Quarter cycle.” Ram leaped over the railing, landing on the ground.

Cyrus followed him. The circuits on the floor radiated bright green under the impact, and Cyrus continued to drive his boots into the floor as they walked, just to light it up.

“Quarter cycle, okay,” Ram repeated. “By then, I should have a pretty good idea of who’s an ally and who’s an enemy in Purgos. We can set up some introductions, and really get this thing moving.” Ram smiled over his shoulder. “I’m excited.”

Cyrus quit stomping the floor and crossed his arms. “So you really think we have a shot at this? At taking down Clu?”

“This isn’t my first time overthrowing a totalitarian regime!” Ram laughed. “Yeah, kid, I’d say we have a pretty good shot. And this time, I plan to stay rezzed for _all_ of it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> had to physically restrain myself from making Roy Kleinberg's username ROYER_THE_DESTROYER


	22. Into the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tron and his fellow renegades head back to the land of the legally rezzed to start some chaos. However, Tron's thoughts are not on the revolution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see end notes see end notes!

There was an old song Flynn used to sing as he built up the Grid. He sung it over and over, until he’d muttered “Screw it” and brought a few MP4 programs into the Grid to sing it in higher resolution than he could manage. “This digital frontier is gonna be a frontier of _taste_ ,” he explained, and Tron crossed his arms and looked on dubiously as the MP4 programs began singing a heavy, frantic rhythm together.

“What is the meaning of that audio?” Tron had inquired.

“That, my friend, is a _sick_ guitar solo,” Flynn replied, slinging his arm across Tron’s shoulders, tapping his friend’s upper arm to the beat of the song. “Tron, have you ever heard a song before?”

Tron had wrinkled his forehead, thinking, finally returning with: “Does Encom’s systemwide software patch notification qualify?”

“No!” Flynn cried in disgust. “Gah! _No_. Listen.” He gestured wildly at the MP4 programs, who had taken to jumping around wildly to the beat, grinning like fools, thoroughly enjoying themselves. “Listen to that, will ya?”

Tron listened, and held onto the music in a memory to play back later for Yori.

Tron rode down from the mountain, Yori ahead on his right, Able ahead on his left, Cyrus dead ahead, datastorm raging around them. One of Flynn’s songs came back to him. He heard it in his memory, clear and powerful. It seemed to fit.

He didn’t understand most of the words, didn’t know what champagne was. But he knew about power, and spellbinding rage, and he knew what it meant to catch the wrong edge of a blade. And so he rode down the hill, burning up in the wake of betrayal.

Even his own body betrayed him. Every wayward bump in the road sent a sharp, electrical jolt through his code. Still, he felt better than he had in a long time. He could walk on his own. He could almost beat Cyrus in a fight. A few aches and pains were no excuse for laying around in a peaceful cave, not while the Grid still cried out under Clu’s oppression. 

And the song still beat within his memory, reminding him of Flynn, the user that wrote Clu and ran. And the song filled him with anger, anger at Flynn, and Clu, and Dyson. And Alan-One—yes, even Alan-One.

The anger was delicious and bright and manageable, dulling all physical pain.

“C to T,” Cyrus’ voice buzzed over the commlink. “What’s our mark?”

“0x00B01C,” Tron said. “One full millicircuit ’til Purgos. Stay close to the rocks as we move out of the datastorm.”

“Okay,” Cyrus replied. “C out.”

Lightning still ricocheted off the sky, but the rain was letting up. Tron could see the dark outline of the cliffs around him, and he no longer needed to blindly scan the road ahead to stay on it.

As visibility improved, the terrain grew worse. No high-speed winds to wear away the level part of the land, and it hurt. Every jolt of the lightcycle reminded him of his injuries, still burning angrily beneath the surface, reminding him that he’d never be what he once was. Fine. He’d just have to be _better_ than what he once was. Stronger. Tron clenched his jaw and rode forward, imagining what derezzing Dyson would feel like.

The focus was wrong. He knew that. The focus should be on rescuing the ISOs, freeing the prisoners, removing Clu’s privileges, undoing the repurposing, restoring the Grid to its correct state.

But all he could think about was derezzing Dyson.

Derezzing Dyson, had a more satisfying phrase ever been spoken?

Slashing him apart, reducing him to a worthless heap of pixels, a laughingstock of the Grid. Just as pathetic and humiliated as Tron himself had been, and then some. Would he have the restraint to do it slowly?

It was wrong, _somehow_ it was wrong, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it. And as he soared down the mountain, delirious on energy and pain, storm and fire breaking overhead, he realized something beautiful.

He didn’t care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ll leave it to you guys to figure out what song is stuck in Tron’s head in this chapter, but I’ve started to think of the song below as the unofficial anthem of this story. The music style is right, and the lyrics match perfectly. Every time I hear it, I get more excited about the chapters in the near future of this story. I’d use it if it came out prior to ’89, but… alas. 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpSHC1dqX1o  
> (Light Up The Night, by The Protomen)


	23. A Little Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the dark, in a storm, on the way to revolution, anything could go wrong.

They were on the long, long road to Purgos again, and there was rain, heavy and dark, too much rain to see the clouds. Cyrus’ own mind was a cloudbank, heavy, weighed down with clouds of a different sort. He just wanted to rest it on the handlebars and sleep, let the endless rain overhead batter him into oblivion.

 _Users_ , he was tired.

Strange it was, that a matter of microcycles would find them in the city, in the middle of all the light and noise one could ever find in the sinking system. Yes, they’d be in the city, hanging illegal flyers for a concert, advertising a band that didn’t exist yet. Concerts were still legal, according to Ram, so long as the music passed Clu’s whitelist.

It was all part of the plan. They’d reverse engineer the workings of Clu’s propaganda machine, they’d change minds down there in the city, opinions. Sabotage ideas by sabotaging a concert.

The collision of a mind against another mind, hard enough to change its direction. Cyrus’ head ached, and the thunder pounding around him made it worse.

Ram said it would be easier with music; he said to set their minds to a rhythm, to a dance, then sway them in the right direction.

Strobing lights—thundering bass—ear splitting synth—jumping and writhing together against crowds of hot, overcharged bodies—it was too much. Even then, surrounded by nothing but the storm, Cyrus’ mind was too loud, too sickeningly loud. He wanted to rest his head on the handlebars, slide off the road, curl up under the rain, and sleep. 

But he couldn’t. For this stretch of the journey, he was in the lead, and he couldn't afford to even think about sleeping. These cliffs were treacherous—if he strayed beyond the blue guidelines on his navigation screen, he risked going over the edge, shattering on the rocks far below.

So he did the closest thing to sleeping; he let half his mind follow the navigation screen, and let the rest drift along behind.

Always, whenever he was clear of the Outlands’ bitter storms, Cyrus would look out towards the Sea, towards the distant spire of Arjia. It still stood, gleaming, like a beacon in the distance, blue as the purest veins of energy that ran deep through the heart of the Grid. As long as Arjia stood tall, the ISOs were alive, and there was hope that he would see Diffie again.

Cyrus had been repeating that mantra to himself over and over— _free the Grid, save the ISOs, at any cost, at any cost_ —but the words didn’t make sense anymore, blending like so much rain. He missed Diffie, and felt like an awful friend. It hit him then that Diffie might be derezzed, and he sank even lower. He missed them, he missed them all, missed their kind, open way of talking, their architecture and philosophy. He missed playing jai alai with Diffie and the other younger ISOs, missed driving through the streets of their settlements, everything bright and cyan and glittering, not a raindrop in sight. 

Cyrus jerked his head up, before the past got too bright. He had to stay here. He had to stay focused, focused on the road and the revolution. He thought about the blue lightcycle directly behind him, burning its illegal color into the darkness. What would Tron do in a time like this? Powering down a dark road, tired and alone, unsure if anyone he loved was alive?

“What do you do, Tron?” Cyrus muttered, longing to open the commlink and really ask him, unsure if such a question would be welcomed. “What do you do when you wanna lie down and quit?”

There was a time when Cyrus believed Tron to be invincible. Tireless, impervious to pain or injury. He knew, now, that Tron could get tired, tired to the breaking point, but quitting? Tron didn’t know the word. The last quarter cycle was proof enough of that. Ever since Cyrus brought back that energy implant, he and Tron been training nonstop, and for a program who’d been half-derezzed nearly an entire cycle, Tron was relentless. Cyrus had gone from crutch to glorified sparring sim in a matter of microseconds, and he still had all the bruises to prove it.

He’d expected it to be awkward at first, teaching _Tron himself_ how to fight again. However, after practically carrying Tron everywhere for the past cycle, it wasn’t awkward at all. In fact, it was all very much the same as ever—Tron giving instructions, Cyrus following, and _still_ managing to make mistakes.

That first training session. Glitch, what a fool he’d made of himself. In his defense, Tron could have fooled anyone with the way he stood: arms folded, feet apart, eyes glinting with something just shy of murder. Cyrus figured he was about to get his backside handed to him.

So when Tron said “I’m attacking, what’s your response?” and _moved_ , Cyrus didn’t think. He reacted on instinct, slamming his elbow into Tron’s chest with all the power he’d usually give an attacker.

Tron went down with a strangled gasp of surprise, and lay still.

Cyrus was utterly lost for a moment. Then, in a tidal wave of humiliation, he realized. It was all a front. It was probably all Tron could do to stand upright, and he, idiotic program that he was, he'd hit him as hard as he could. “Oh, _glitch_.” Cyrus dissolved into apologies, dropping to the floor beside Tron.

The moment he got enough air to speak, Tron demanded why he was apologizing to the enemy.

 _But you’re not my enemy_ , Cyrus said, apologizing, apologizing.

 _It’s really okay_ , Tron said. _Just—c’mon, help me up, will you?_

As Cyrus pulled him to his feet, he felt the other program’s unsteadiness, and was careful as he backed away. Tron stood still, hands on knees, breathing slowly, and Cyrus, flooded with worry, asked if he was all right.

He insisted he was fine.

And Cyrus, with typical tact, had blurted: _Yeah, a fine liar_.

“Why?” Cyrus whispered aloud. The memory of it made him want to smack his face against the handlebars. “Why did I say that?”

Tron had only rolled his eyes, cracked his knuckles, and ordered Cyrus to train him in evasive maneuvers. The older program was clumsy at first, but he got back into the rhythm sooner than Cyrus expected. It wasn’t long at all before he was moving faster than Cyrus. The security program grew more and more lively as the training wore on, circuits getting brighter and brighter with each small success. Even when he crashed in exhaustion and Cyrus had to dump energy over his head until he came to, Tron was in high spirits.

Jagged lightning split the sky in half, and Cyrus fell out of the memory. Thunder and rain pounded around him, louder than the hum of the lightcycle, and Cyrus realized all at once that if _he_ were tired, Tron must surely be worse.

Cyrus glanced back. There was Yori over his right shoulder, a violet smudge through the rain. There was Able over his left shoulder, white light, slightly clearer than Yori’s. And just behind them, bringing up the rear of the diamond… darkness.

The blue light was gone.

“Oh, no,” Cyrus muttered. Surely the rain wasn’t that heavy. He’d clearly seen _three_ lights behind him at the start of the journey, and that had been through snow. Maybe Tron had masked his circuitry. Maybe…

Cyrus tried to press the commlink, nearly short-circuiting with panic and hope, missing the button, missing, finally getting it to stick. “C to T, come in, T. Are you there?”

Static buzzed, and Cyrus blinked, mind filling with terrible images, Tron twisted by the roadside; Tron going over the side of a cliff, unconscious in the lightcycle; Tron derezzed.

“C to T, come in, T. Tron. Tron? Are you there, this is Cyrus, please respond.”

Static.

“No, no…” Cyrus switched channels to broadcast. “Yori? Able?”

There was feedback as the connection went through, and Cyrus could hear them, Yori and Able, arguing about data recovery methods.

“Able? Yori?” Cyrus repeated.

“Okay, maybe that’ll fly for the gear system of a lightcycle,” Yori exclaimed. “But you’re absolutely glitched if you think—”

“Aw, listen, I’ve used the method on recognizers—”

“Absolutely glitched.”

“Nav systems—”

“Well, I guess that explains the state of the last recognizer I flew in.”

“Able? Yori? Programs?”

“You can’t knock it till you’ve tried it! I’m telling you, it’s a real data saver!”

“ABLE AND YORI!” Cyrus cried, and the commlink screeched with feedback. 

“What now, kid?” Able asked.

Cyrus slowed down, falling in line with them. “Where is Tron? He won’t respond.”

“Is he not right behind us?” Able asked.

“He isn’t,” Yori said. “ _Glitch!_ ” In a flash, she skidded into a 180 and zoomed past Cyrus, static crackling in the commlink as she moved out of range.

Cyrus turned and sped after her, very much awake and cursing himself for ever thinking of sleep, scanning the road with all the power he could afford.

Before Tron’s signature registered on his scanners, he saw them—purple and blue headlights, side by side, like a pair of eyes in the storm. Tron's and Yori’s lightcycles. Well, Tron’s lightcycle was still active, that was something.

He pulled up beside them, cold rain hitting him as soon as the baton folded into his hands. Shivering, he made his way towards the lights, shielding his eyes, and saw the mouth of a shallow cave. He ducked inside, out of the storm, and by the lights of the vehicles, he saw them.

Tron was in the cave, shivering, staring down at a container of energy he held in both hands. Yori was beside him, supporting him with one arm. The sight of them made Cyrus dizzy with relief. “What happened?” he cried, stumbling into the cave.

“Tron, you have this one to thank,” Yori said, quietly. “If it weren’t for him… we might have made it all the way to Purgos without you.”

Tron nodded, looking up at Cyrus through his hair. “Cyrus. Thank you. Seems I—seems I owe you twice now.”

“No! No, you don’t owe me anything, come on.” Cyrus dropped to eye level. “What happened?”

“I… I don’t know. One nano, I’m following you three, everything’s fine. The next, I’m lying by the side of the road. Everything in between is a big blank.”

Cyrus sighed. Tron was not derezzed, and that was something. “You feel all right?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine.” He leaned forward, resting his head on his arms. “Just need a nano to rest.”

Able pulled up then, skidding into the cave on his lightcycle. “Tron, are we good?”

Tron, head down, gave Able a thumbs-up.

“Able, you mind?” Yori twirled her finger at the lightcycle. “It’s a little crowded in here.”

“Well, you’re right. No place to cram a Bit.” Able derezzed his lightcycle, tossed the baton into the air, and caught it behind his back. “You know, I was just about ready for some R&R myself. Good thinking, Tron.”

“Ha.”

Thunder rumbled outside.

“How far are we to Purgos?” Tron mumbled, lifting his head.

“About three quarters of a millicircuit,” Able said.

Tron gave the ground a frustrated kick. “This is ridiculous. We’ve got to keep moving—we’re losing time. _Glitching busted energy implant_ —”

“Your implant’s fine, I checked,” Yori said. “It’s the rest of you that needs rest.”

“And the rest of us,” Able added. “We’re not going anywhere until we’re all rested, and that’s final. Now drink your drink.”

Grumbling under his breath, Tron picked up the container and began to drink it as fast as he could.

“Easy,” Yori said. “You wanna overcharge or something?”

He rolled his eyes, but obeyed.

“Hey, Tron, once you’re done with that, you wanna practice some more evasive maneuvers?” Cyrus asked. “Maybe some aerial stunts? What do you say?”

Able chuckled.

Tron looked up at him, a slow smile spreading across his face until he laughed, bright and unexpected. “Evade _this_ ,” he said, and threw the empty energy container at Cyrus.

Cyrus caught it. It was heavier than he expected. Overwhelmed by exhaustion, he yawned.

“How are you holding up, kid?” Tron asked.

Cyrus’ yawn grew bigger. “Good.”

Tron narrowed his eyes. “When’s the last time you got some proper sleep?”

“Uh…” Cyrus thought about it. “A while. I don’t remember. A cycle, maybe. Maybe more.”

“Well, it was a busy cycle for you,” Able said.

Cyrus waved his hand, forcing his eyes open. “Busy cycle for all of us.”

“But especially you!” Tron exclaimed. “You went to Purgos and back, and then spent the rest of it trying to beat this old piece of legacy code back into shape. Huh. And _I’m_ the one that fell off the lightcycle.” Shaking his head, he pushed himself to his feet, and limped towards the cave opening.

Able turned in a flash. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, where do you think you’re going?”

“Getting the kid some energy, he clearly needs it.”

Cyrus sat up straight. “Oh, no—”

“Nuh-uh,” Able said, pushing Tron back. “No, you stay down. Both of you. Yikes. I’ll get it.”

“Able, I am perfectly capable of _walking_ —”

“Tron, sit down!” Yori and Able ordered, simultaneously.

“I’m good,” Cyrus said. “Really. I don’t need anything.”

The other three turned on him, chorusing: “ _YES, YOU DO._ ”

Cyrus raised his hands. “Fine.”

Outside the cave, the blue light went out, then the violet, then the white, and the world was plunged into darkness.

Able’s circuits appeared through the storm, energy in one hand, three lightcycle batons in the other. He handed Cyrus the energy. “Here you go, kid.”

“Thank you.”

“Sorry about the dark,” Able said, and held up the three batons. “Can’t give Clu’s forces a beacon right to our location.”

“Thank you, Able,” Yori said.

“Don’t mention it.”

No one said anything, just sat close, and listened to the storm. With the lightcycles derezzed, the lightning seemed sharper, the thunder louder, the world much, much bigger. Cyrus felt fear rise within him, but he pushed it back down. He was not alone. The four of them were together. Maybe the four of them truly could make a difference, right this terrible wrong, stand up against the world.

He thought of the ISOs, and the plan ahead of them. It really was crazy, the four of them, thinking they could change the ideas of a whole city.

“Everyone okay?” Tron asked. “Not too cold?”

He was shivering badly, Cyrus could hear it in his voice. That wasn’t good. Sure, it was storming outside, but with the four of them crammed in the cave together, it wasn’t exactly chilly.

“Oh… come here,” Yori whispered, and Cyrus could hear her shifting, moving closer to Tron. “Come on.”

Cyrus wanted to move closer, too; closer to the others, farther from the outside, but he was so core-weary, he didn’t move at all. He just stared, watching the dim pattern of the rain as it fell and fell and fell.

“Is that better?” Yori asked.

“Mhm.”

“Good.” She sighed. “Let’s have some light. Is that okay with everyone?”

“Okay by me,” Able said.

“Sure,” Cyrus agreed.

“As long as it’s dim,” Tron said, softly. “No beacons.”

“No beacons,” she repeated. “Just a little light.”

All at once, Cyrus realized he could _see_ the wall of raindrops falling just outside the cave, tinged with a violet-blue glow for just an instant as they fell downward. He turned and saw the source of the light—a glowdot—surface swirled with violet and cyan, glowing softly from the center. Carefully, Yori leaned forward and slid the sphere from its platform.

Tron curled up on his side. “It’s beautiful,” he whispered.

“Thank you,” Yori said, nestling in behind him.

“Now, how in Flynn’s great Grid did you make that?” Able asked. “This is raw data rock out here, no prep code in place.”

“Oh, simple,” Yori deadpanned. “I’m actually a user.”

Cyrus jumped. “You're kidding!” It wasn’t entirely unbelievable. Actually, it made a lot of sense.

Yori burst into laughter. “Oh, Cyrus! Yes, of course I’m kidding.”

“Oh…”

“I made it beforehand. I brought a few glowdots with me. Actually, I brought a lot of glowdots with me.”

“How many is a lot?” Able asked.

“Sixty-four.”

Able slid off the rock he was sitting on. “Sixty-four!”

“What? Come on. They don’t take up hardly any space, and they’re nice to have around! Just in case we ever need a little light.”

Cyrus reached out and poked the glowdot with one finger. It tingled, like a sentry’s lightstaff on the lowest setting. All the new sentries did that, for some reason, went around poking each other with lightstaffs set on the lowest setting, laughing uproariously when they got someone by surprise. Cyrus poked at it again, thinking about electricity, sentries, and the blue program he’d seen arrested in Purgos. Again, again, dimly aware that his finger was burning.

“Hey quit it, will you?” Tron said. “Those things burn.”

“He knows that from experience,” Yori added.

“Oh, really?” Cyrus asked. "That sounds like a story I need to hear."

“Yeah, really,” Tron admitted. “And the story goes like this: I tried to pick one up. The end.”

"Oh, but that wasn't the end," Yori added with a sly smile.

Able gave Cyrus a wink.

"I told him 'Put it down, it's gonna burn you!' And it was burning him, I could tell. I could see the smoke. And did he put it down?" Yori laughed. "Tell them, Tron. Did you put it down?"

"Eventually."

"Eventually, yeah, but did you do something else, first?"

"I... think I said it didn't hurt."

"Right, and?"

Tron grinned. "And I picked up two more to prove it."

Able and Cyrus exploded into laughter. 

"He was only three cycles old, he didn't know any better," Yori said. "Good thing his ability to fight the MCP was not compromised by his knowledge of glowdots. Or lack thereof."

“Okay, that’s enough nostalgia for one cycle,” Tron said. “I’m going to set a timer. One microcycle. We rest one micro. Then it’s back on the road. Agreed?”

"Agreed," said Able and Yori.

"I'm not tired," Cyrus yawned. "I wanna hear more three-cycle-old Tron stories."

"Another time, you little gridbug," Yori grinned, closing her eyes. "Another time."

“Okay… There," Tron said. "Timer set. Hopefully we’re not cubes when it goes off.”

“ _Tron_ ,” Yori chided. "Shh."

“I’m sorry. Have a good rest, everyone.”

There was a general mumble of agreement, and then quiet.

Time passed.

And it passed in the strange way it does when one is beyond tired, stretching out and stretching out and suddenly racing forward, kicking your mind back awake.

Tired as he was, Cyrus could not sleep. He stared into the sphere, and the sound of the rain poured into his mind, bleeding into the colors, weighing him into the ground.

Somewhere between the storm and the darkness of sleep mode, he happened to look up over the sphere, and thought he saw Able watching him. He bolted upright, wide awake in an instant.

But Able’s eyes were closed. He was sound asleep.

A trick of the light, perhaps?

Cyrus shook his head, but the sensation still stuck in the back of his mind, a creeping unease, as though an unseen pair of eyes lurked in the shadows, watching his every move. He looked over at Tron and Yori. They were also asleep with their arms around each other, circuits dimming and brightening in sync.

It was something out there in the storm.

It had to be.

Cyrus turned to face the opening of the cave, bracing for a dark silhouette, yellow circuits, the terrible, sterile-friendly voice of Clu. There was nothing. Only the same, infinite rain.

And yet…

 _Something_ was there. Something _had_ been watching him.

Cyrus’ circuits were running brighter than the glowdot, brighter than the lightning, mouth parched by fear. He crawled backwards, backwards, until he was right beside Tron—not close enough to touch, but close enough to hear him breathing; a slow, regular, reassuring rhythm, and Cyrus began to calm down.

It didn’t make sense. Until Tron recovered, he, _Cyrus_ , was the strongest fighter in the cave. And yet…

And yet, he felt calm, and safe, just knowing Tron was there, as though the ability to protect went beyond mere combat.

Gradually, Cyrus’ breathing slowed.

He closed his eyes. Whatever was out there in the storm, whatever it was, it couldn’t touch him now.

He fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it turns out Linkin Park and thunderstorm 4 hour loop compilations played simultaneously make for an excellent mood setter.


	24. Graffiti

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yori's excited to be back in the city, inciting revolution through the art of invention.  
> Tron does not quite share the sentiment.

The last quarter-cycle had gone by in a dizzying flash.

Covert messages had been exchanged.

False identities had been forged into discs.

Plans and backup plans had been set.

There would be a concert in Signal9, a club of lesser reputation, out on the outskirts of Purgos. According to Ram, concerts were still legal in Purgos, though the permissions for posting flyers of any kind had been raised. Purgos’ latest band organizers had some preparation to do.

So Yori went to work. She borrowed Able’s code injector for reference, got a little permissions-override advice from Ram, and went back to the hideout to test her latest sim: a flyer placer. Isolating a square spot on the cave wall, Tron built security layers into it, stronger and stronger, and Yori tested the placer again and again, tweaking it each time it failed, tweaking it to the point of deresolution.

“You can rebuild it, right?” Tron asked, worried.

“Sure—I’ve still got the wireframe, don’t I?”

“Good, good. Listen—that last security layer works off the same algorithm protecting Clu’s fortress. You break everything up to that, you can post everywhere else on the Grid.”

“Well, then.” Yori grinned, rerezzing the wireframe in a single flick. “Ready to start a revolution?”

-

The group entered Purgos through the recycling plant. Their false identity code might fool the average program, but they couldn’t run the risk of a full, sentry-level scan. It wouldn't be the main gate for them, not yet. As they crept through the dismal labyrinth, Yori kept one hand firmly planted against her right side. Hidden under her jacket, held lightly in a special sliding clasp, was the beginning of revolution. The flyer placer. None of them could afford to lose their devices.

As they made their way out of the gloom and onto the streets, bustling with programs and golden-lit with screens, a thrill ran all throughout Yori’s circuits. Using art and design to combat a totalitarian regime? Oh, she’d been programmed for this. If Clu wanted to act like the MCP, she’d give him all the respect she’d given the MCP, and then some.

Clu's face looked out from nearly every screen, empty-eyed and smiling and a hundred times larger than life, saying words like _perfection_ and _together_ and _with you all the way._

Yori looked up at the screens, reveling in the anger his cold smile brought to her circuits. Sweet, brilliant anger. Anger that made her awake, made her thoughts run crisp.

She could hardly wait to begin.

Tron turned to face the group, helmet glinting in the murky lights of the city. “All right, programs,” he began, crossing his arms. “Able, you and Cyrus take the higher address spaces. Yori and I will take the lower ones.”

“Got it,” Able said.

“Post the flyers in places with low visibility. Remember, our target audience is _programs flying under the radar_. If engaged, answer questions briefly and leave. We'll meet by the docks, 0x001C00, in two millis. No later.”

“Yes, sir,” Cyrus said.

“Let’s go!” Tron ordered, and the group split.

Yori walked on ahead of Tron, conscious of her counterpart’s scan behind her. She knew its signature well, she could feel its searching power, sense its direction, its bright edge of alarm. He was actively scanning the streets, the buildings, her, the programs around them, the vehicles going past, _her_. She smiled under her helmet, couldn’t help it, and knew she was glowing pink beneath the dark masking.

She turned her head, ever so slightly, watching him from the corner of her eye. It was good to see him standing again. Tall, powerful, commanding authority and inspiring avoidance at the same time. Programs wanted to look to him. Programs wanted to stay out of his way. As for her, she appreciated the way he moved through the city, appreciated the shape of his—

 _TRON-JA-307020 >> Eyes on the road, program_.

The ping was sharp, but was not given at command level. Yori turned forward with a grin, pinging him back.

 _ROM-YORI-92954 >> You’re one to talk_.

His reply was quick. _I’m keeping an eye out, scanning for danger._

Yori could hardly keep from laughing aloud at that one. _Seem to be scanning me an awful lot,_ she replied. _You think I’m dangerous?_

 _The most dangerous thing in the city_ , he shot back. _Clu doesn’t stand a chance._

Yori smiled. _More dangerous than you?_

He did not answer.

 _I think we may have to put that to the test_ , Yori pressed.

There was a pause. Then— _You do need to learn some combat moves…_

 _You’re going down, program!_ She saw it then. Up ahead, between two buildings. A narrow stretch of flat wall, set far enough back to afford some cover from the street. _There_ , she pinged, nodding towards the wall.

 _Go_ , he replied, turning away, sticking to the main street. _I’ll cover you._

 _Better not take your eyes off me_.

 _Focus on the mission, Yori_ , he said. And that time, it was a command.

Yori slowed her pace, indignant. _Obviously_ , she was focusing on the mission. She could focus on more than one thing at a time. Unlike some.

 _Come on. Get a move on,_ he urged her.

 _I don’t want to attract attention_ , she returned.

_Do you see how fast everyone else on this street is moving? Hurry. Please._

Reaching the wall, she felt his eyes on her once more, felt the strength of the scan increase. He was on extremely high alert, perhaps sensing some danger unseen to her. _He’s only trying to protect you, Yori_ , she reminded herself. There was no sense in being bitter. Not at him.

Wrapping her right hand around the handle of the placer, hidden safely in her jacket, Yori took off one of her boots with her left hand, shaking the boot as though some aggravating bit of data rock was inside.

Such a motion might shake anyone off balance. And anyone, when losing balance, might lean against the nearest wall to regain that balance.

Yori leaned against the wall, eyes locked on the inside of her boot, twisting her right arm until the placer started buzzing in her hand. _Perfect_. Its printing side had locked onto the wall’s base code. Her arm was at such an extreme angle that it hurt to press the button, but activate it she did, and held firm until the buzzing stopped. The flyer was in.

Yori pushed back from the wall, sliding the placer up into her sleeve. As she slipped back into her boot, she couldn’t resist one little peek at the wall.

The flyer code was settling, pale outlines flickering below the surface, splintering the permissions barrier that prevented the usual ad program or vandal from spreading their nonsense. It was beautiful—the very picture of revolution. Faint, undercover, but still there. Ready to shine. It was only a matter of time.

Tron’s ping hit her sensors like a jai alai stick to the head. _Back on the road. Now. I don’t like the way those white circuits are looking at us._

She moved back to the main street, leaning down every so often, pretending to adjust part of her boots. From the corner of her eye, she noticed three white-circuited programs, leering from the windows of a suit repair shop. She was careful not to look directly at them.

Tron gripped her upper arm—hard _—_ and pulled her down the next street.

She pulled away with a sharp ping. _I can walk on my own_.

He let go immediately, but the power in his scan rose, higher and higher, and Yori’s sensors began to sting. _Users_. She appreciated the concern, but he was going to short circuit in the middle of the street if he kept this up, and bring the whole city down on their heads while he was at it.

 _Cool it_ , she warned. _You wanna rile up every program in the city?_

He replied before her transmission was finished. _Just keep moving, okay?_

Behind her helmet, Yori raised her eyebrows, pressing her lips together, willing herself to let it go. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his fault. He was naturally serious, naturally watchful. The events of last cycle had multiplied that a thousand times, shortening his temper, leaving him in a constant state of alarm. He carried his alarm with him wherever he went, stretching the air tight with it, etching it over the walls and the ground. She could feel it, creeping in under her skin, the invisible stain of his fear. Somewhere under the shields, he was surely exhausted. He had to be. 

But did it ever occur to him that maybe she was tired, too? She _was_ tired. Very tired, drained by his relentless, ever-present scan. And planning a revolution wasn’t exactly a relaxing task. 

All the same, it was a task that needed to be done.

Yori gave herself a little shake. _Focus on the mission, Yori_ , she thought. _Focus on the mission._ She looked up at the screens on the skyscrapers, up towards Clu's infuriating, untouchable grin, knowing she'd find enough _there_ to fuel her for cycles. But because she was looking up, and not watching the road, she didn't notice the group of burly programs in her path until it was too late.

They dodged her, but not without a little pushback and a few unsavory comments.

It didn't matter. It didn’t. She let it go and kept moving, paying them no mind, pinging Tron to do the same even as the intensity of his scan surged outward, burning her sensors.

She jumped, startled.

It hurt the other programs, too, and they flinched, turning back, advancing in anger.

“Watch it next time,” Tron growled, knocking them flat with an elbow, a foot, and a knee. He was fast, dangerous, lethally strong even with his energy waning. Other programs stared, keeping their distance.

 _Let’s not cause a scene, please,_ Yori pinged him as they moved off into dimmer parts of the city, the crowd moving to let them pass.

He didn’t respond.


	25. Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Able's planting flyers, and Cyrus is supposed to be watching his back. For some reason, he can't quite seem to focus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alternative summary: Cyrus spends an entire chapter being incredibly relatable.

Cyrus was beginning to wish they’d taken the lower address spaces.

This side of Purgos was a perfect cyclone of activity, and it was all he could do to keep Able’s shock of white hair in his sights as they struggled through the streets. Programs hurried about their business, silent and weary-eyed under the unending broadcast. Speakers hung in every corner, blaring out-of-sync, static-tinged broadcasts from Clu.

Cyrus was getting tired again, very tired, the kind of tired he used to get as a newly compiled Beta, undergoing round after round of stress tests. He felt heavy in the head, as though he’d been doing floating point calculations for a whole cycle. The two canisters of energy he’d drained at their impromptu campsite had done nothing to help his fatigue. It was powerdown he needed, but powerdown wasn’t an option. Not yet.

He shook his head, opening his eyes wide behind the helmet.

He had to be alert.

The city was quieter than the last time he was there, but it was a dead, treacherous quiet. Programs kept their heads down. Sentries stomped through the streets in groups of six or more, lightstaffs live and hungry for violence. And nobody looked at anyone else, and nobody spoke aloud, and nobody laughed.

 _Purgos is a lot duller than I remember_ , Able pinged to Cyrus.

 _Really?_ Cyrus pinged back, keeping it light. _Too tired to notice_.

But he had noticed. All of the shops, all those billboards and screens, they’d changed their lights. They were all white now, or orange, or a weak combination of the two, falling flat in an effort to imitate sysadmin gold.

Only Clu had permissions for such a bright color.

The racket of music booming from shops and apartments was gone; instead, the voice of Clu rolled out over the buildings, preaching of unity through perfection, perfection through conformity. Through the haze of static, Cyrus caught a phrase, repeated and repeated and repeated over the others.

_Perfection == Freedom._

The Occupation had moved in, bleeding Purgos of all its life.

And there wasn’t an ISO to be seen.

Cyrus wondered about them, the ISOs. He hadn’t seen one in a long, long time. They’d all gone deep into hiding.

“You okay, Cyrus?” Able asked.

Cyrus closed his eyes, stretching his arms up over his head. “Ah… could use a nap. Or ten.”

“Heh. Couldn’t we all.” Able turned away, pinging Cyrus as he did so. _Found a good spot for a flyer. Cover me._

Cyrus opened his eyes. Able was edging down into the street, towards the piers of the overpass.

 _Wait_ , Cyrus tried to ping him, but it bounced back with an error. Able was out of range.

Cyrus hurried after him, scanning as he went. As far as he could tell, Able was in the clear. No sentries. No ISOs, either—but of course, there were no ISOs, Cyrus didn’t even know why he still bothered to look.

Just regular programs, white circuited and dead-eyed.

It was all the same, all the same, and Cyrus’ weary mind drifted into the future.

In just two millicycles, he’d be following Ram through an encrypted tunnel to an ISO safehouse, just outside the city. They wanted to start smuggling ISOs out to Arjia _now_ , before Clu cracked down harder on the ISO hunts, but the operation was still struggling to get off the ground. They needed more hands.

Tron planned to analyze the security of the operation, patch up the weak points, offer muscle when needed. He'd need Cyrus' help, and Cyrus was looking forward to it. Cyrus didn’t like the circumstances, but at least he was doing _something_ other than skulking around the edges of cities on recon. Helping free the ISOs, now that was a task worthy of his abilities. He was honored that Tron saw it, too.

Tron. Thinking about Tron made Cyrus wish he hadn’t complained so much about being tired. If any program had a right to complain, it was Tron.

Cyrus was no idiot. He knew Tron wasn’t well, even with the implant. He heard Able’s and Yori’s worried whispers; he saw the way Tron stood sometimes, when he thought no one was watching. Head down, arms wrapped around himself, breathing hitched and uneven. The sight of it made Cyrus angry, angry at Dyson and Clu and the whole order of things.

And yet, Tron never complained. Sure, he was irritable; but he never whined about wanting a nap, never wanted to give up and quit. It was admirable.

Users. Everything he did was _so_ _glitching_ _admirable_.

His silence under Dyson’s blade, his patience throughout the long recovery, his encouragement to the others, his determination to train despite his injuries. Through it all, Cyrus had never seen him more upset than when it came to the suffering of others. Tron had been slowly _derezzing from the inside out_ , but all he could talk about was the injustice of Clu’s regime, the systematic destruction of the ISOs, the repurposing of those who fought back. He had to stand. He had to make things right.

No wonder his insignia had become synonymous with hope, even long before the coup. As far as programs went, he was one of the truly great ones, and it was a privilege to fight by his side. And oh, Cyrus would fight. He’d do anything, go anywhere, push himself to the limits, if Tron gave the order.

The city looked dead now, but once the rumor got out, that Tron was still alive—and not just alive, but staging an uprising… why, it would shock the Grid back to life.

Cyrus smiled, imagining the look on Clu’s face when they took back the Grid.

He could see it all so clearly—Tron, strong and confident, marching into Clu’s fortress, the terror in the Sysadmin’s eyes as Tron faced him down, the sentries running in fear, ISOs flooding into the streets and cheering, fireworks of every color, _especially_ the illegal cyan. And Cyrus would be at his side, watching it all go down.

Oh, it would be glorious.

Glorious.

Cyrus opened his eyes wide, taking a deep breath. He could do it. He could stay awake, he could be admirable. He could be like Tron. 

Heavy hands gripped his shoulders, crushing the visions to dust.

His disc was taken from its port.

“Identify!” growled an unfamiliar voice.

Cyrus’ circuits went cold, and he did not move.

The hands that held Cyrus spun him around and pinned him against the wall. His assailant was large, unhelmeted. Bits of his face were damaged and derezzing, burning sick-virus-yellow under the skin. Cyrus’ own skin crawled, every line of code threatening to tear loose from its moorings and purge the assailant of his virus.

“ _Identify_!” the program repeated, louder this time.

Cyrus, fighting down his directive, tried to remember the false ID number Ram had given him. His mind was blank. Completely blank. Maybe he should be fighting back, but he was frozen, paralyzed somehow.

“Well now, sir,” Able’s voice floated in from somewhere. “I think there’s been some kind of mistake. See, we’re just a couple of ad programs—”

“A likely story!” roared the program holding Cyrus. “C’mon, Xerom. Let’s take them to the Pit.”

And Cyrus was pushed down the alley, burning with anger and shame, flinging up a block against Able’s reproachful pings.

How could he ever expect to help the ISOs?

Why did he believe he could be anything like Tron?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story is four months old! wild.  
> @ all of you still with me, thank you. you da bomb :]


	26. News from the Underground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tron worries about Able and Cyrus. Yori tries to keep Tron from doing anything spectacularly reckless. Ram shares some rather curious news.

By all logic, the smoke should have been green.

They stood at the edge of Purgos, where cold system-blue seeped in from the outside, and murky gold drifted in from the city center. Thus, Tron reasoned, the smoke ought to be green. Not _red_. Not this muddled, scanner-blocking, mind-fuzzing red, red that smeared sounds and stretched lights, twisting reality around on itself, like a smile pulled too tight.

Tron and Yori kept to the shadows, inching through the red smoke towards the rendezvous point.

Skewering the smoke at odd angles were the data recycling mechanisms, hissing and grating. They seemed to move in the billowing smoke like lurking adversaries, setting every one of Tron’s instincts screaming, oozing back into place just as he drew his disc.

Tron had never liked this part of Purgos.

But Yori was there, right at his side, constant and glowing beneath the circuitry-masking jacket. At least, in a system of uncertain truths, there was one thing that would always be right.

“You okay, big program?” Yori asked.

Tron kept his eyes up, but he reached back towards Yori’s hand, finding it easily, as though it were a part of him. “I’m okay. You?”

She wrapped her arms around him. “I’m splendid.”

“You bet you are.” Tron sighed, glanced down at her beautiful face behind the translucent helmet, and back up again. “Yori, I don't like this. Able and Cyrus should’ve been here by now.”

Somewhere in the city, a vehicle’s siren screamed, warped by the distance.

Yori moved closer to him, brushing one hand up and down his back with a ping. _Hey. Everything’s okay._

But everything was not okay.

He _knew_ it wasn’t. 

If it were, Cyrus and Able would be here, where they were supposed to be, but they weren't, and everything was _so very much not okay_.

His mind broke away, running through the streets and alleyways of uptown Purgos, scenes leaping and flashing all around him. Able, caught red-handed. Able, facing his adversaries with the usual wry grin, choosing diplomacy over violence. Able, dragged off to be repurposed. Wise, loyal Able, shattering to cubes.

And Cyrus! Cyrus, overwhelmed by sentries, beaten into shutdown, dragged off to the games, to ultimate repurposing or deresolution.

By all the silent users in the sky, if anything happened to that kid, the cubes of any programs responsible would fill the streets of Purgos.

Because Cyrus was, at cycle’s end, just a kid. He was so powerful in combat, so poised in conflict, Tron tended to forget how very young he was. Naïve. Idealistic. Unprepared in many ways for the darkness of this system, still in need of a protector.

And yet, all this time, who had been protecting who? It had been Cyrus who noticed him missing in the storm, Cyrus who’d been watching his back long before the coup, Cyrus who’d somehow managed to be on that Recognizer at the right time. And then he’d carried Tron— _physically_ carried him—through terrible darkness with a patience and strength stretching far beyond his cycles. If the revolution lost Cyrus, they’d be losing one of the great ones.

Tron couldn’t let that happen. He _would not_ lose Cyrus.

He broke away from Yori, drawing his disc. “I’m going after them, Yori.”

“Tron.”

“You stay here, wait for Ram, let him know where I’ve gone—”

“No! Tron—listen, we are not splitting up, especially not to go gallivanting off on spur of the moment rescue missions!” 

“Yori, I—”

“Listen. Who says they’re not already with Ram? Huh? C’mon, _we_ were a few micros late to the rendezvous point. I bet they’ve already met Ram, he’s moved them to a safe place, and he’s coming back for us.” She squeezed his hand, smiling bright and brave behind her helmet. “Let’s just… hang tight, okay?” 

Something in the tilt of her head brought him out from windswept alleyways, back and back to _this_ side of Purgos. Of course. Of course, Able and Cyrus were late by a few micros—it was a big city. He had to stay calm, stay reasonable.

He stood up straighter, ignoring the hollow pounding in his core—the fear of what could be, the endless scream for energy, for rest, for repairs he could not have. None of that mattered now. What mattered was all right here: Yori’s hand in his, real and firm. The ground beneath him, real and firm.

Able and Cyrus would be along shortly. They would. _They had to_.

And so would Ram, his reliable old friend, bringing news from the growing resistance.

There was movement to his left, and Tron turned, disc drawn in a flash. Something was approaching, drifting steadily nearer, pitch black shadow in the treacherous haze. An unknown program.

Tron positioned himself in front of Yori, readying all systems for the attack, directing every ray of his scan towards the approaching figure.

The scan came back scrambled—glitching smoke—and the figure still advanced.

Tron activated his disc, and it rattled louder than usual.

Deep, green circuits flickered on, iridescent in the mist, and Tron’s scan broke through the shield—or perhaps the shield was drawn back, and the program’s identity shone out, clear and familiar and one of the most welcome things to the senses.

_Ram._

The program derezzed his helmet, curly hair billowing out into its natural state, and—“Greetings, programs!” Ram called out. 

“Didn’t know you’d gone green, Ram,” Tron called out, smiling. Smiling? It was all he could do not to laugh aloud.

“Ram!” Yori cried. 

Ram sprinted forward, nearly stumbling on the uneven ground, laughing as he went. He collided with Tron, hard, lighting up the hollow, scarring places in his code. It should have hurt. It didn't.

Ram stretched out his left arm to pull Yori into the hug, and Tron spotted a clunky communication device on his wrist. It looked like it was pieced together from broken lightrunner radios, and knowing Ram, that’s just exactly what it was. 

“Yori, it is good to see you again!” Ram cried. Pushing back, he beamed up at Tron’s face, so bright, Tron was certain Ram really could see him behind the helmet. “And _you_! It is good to see you.”

“You too, Ram,” Tron said, and meant it with every pixel of his being. 

Ram shook his head, eyes wide and luminous. He sniffed, and pulled Tron back into a second hug. “Oh, come here. You’re alive. You’re really alive.”

“Yeah.” Tron cleared his throat. “Not for much longer, if you keep this up.”

“Oh, shh. Shut up.” Ram shifted, and the radio on his left forearm dug into Tron’s side. “Yori, get yourself back here, we’re not done hugging yet.”

Yori leaped forward with a wonderful laugh, flinging her arms around them once more.

It was warm in the center of that hug, and for one blessed moment, Tron was untouchable. The horde of chilling worries circled outside the group, outside in the cold, unable to break apart that warmth.

But as Tron reached out, one hand finding Ram’s shoulder, the other holding tight to Yori’s waist, the warmth decayed into something awful, oppressive, like being trapped inside a crashing Recognizer, falling faster, bound by the arms, by the ankles, paralyzed and trapped under the searing heat—

Tron ripped himself from the tangle. He stood still, breathing like he'd been trapped under the Sea for a full millicycle. Before the others could put words to the worry in their eyes, he was pushing a question out at them. “ _Ram_. You didn’t happen to see Able or Cyrus come through here already, did you?”

“No,” Ram said, scratching one finger through his hair. “Cyrus... that’s the kid I sent back with your implant, right?”

Tron crossed his arms. He’d very much prefer it if _nobody_ mentioned the implant ever again. “They were supposed to meet us here. Both of them, five micros ago. A lot can happen in five micros, Ram, and I don’t like it.”

“Right.” Ram’s eyebrows drew together, and raising his left wrist, he began to punch buttons on the radio. “Okay, just sent out the alert to my network. They’ll notify me if they spot anything.”

“Hm.”

“Here, walk with me. I’ve got three newsbytes from the underground that you’ll wanna hear—I’ll tell you once we’re—well, once we’re underground.”

\--

“First things first,” Ram said, once four layers of green-lined, mutex-locked code stood between them and the ever-listening system. “There is a movement. Here, in Purgos. It’s small, but…” Ram took a deep breath, ending in a hand-clasped smile. “ _It’s here_.”

Tron and Yori exchanged glances—and oh that spark, that spark in Yori’s eyes, it was a movement unto itself. “Go on,” Tron urged Ram.

“There are just under fifty of us,” Ram began. “Fifty programs that I trust… almost completely. Now, fifty’s a lot, but it isn’t enough to run what’s gonna be a—a full-scale, city-wide… e-eventually _system_ wide… movement.” As he spoke, Ram fiddled mindlessly with the code in the wall, flipping gears one way and then back again, lighting up the whole mechanism green each time the gears changed direction. “But we’ve made a start. Last milli, we got eleven ISOs safely smuggled out to Arjia.”

“Ram, that’s amazing!” Yori cried.

“Yes, good news indeed.” Tron nodded. “What about Clu’s… _plans,_ for Arjia? Has he made any move to seize the city yet?”

“Nope,” Ram replied. “Still untouched. As far as anyone knows, our dear Luminary has no plans against Arjia. It’s rumored that he simply plans to cut off contact with them via Partition.” Ram grimaced. “But there’s nothing concrete.”

“Partition?” Tron leaned forward, a flicker of anger surging up within him. “He’d better not, that’d just about tear the Grid apart—”

“Whoa, whoa, buddy! Nothing’s concrete! All rumors. Just rumors. Rumors from some of my more imaginative sources, at that!” Ram scratched his nose, grinning. “You kids wanna hear something _real_ concrete?” 

“Please,” Yori said.

“Right!” Ram laced his fingers together, clearing his throat. “Item number _the second_ on my list of newsbytes. The concert is still on. Signal9, baby! Couple of my contacts launched that whisper campaign about a little up and coming little band that’s soon to be the Grid’s next big sensation. Reports keep coming in, thanks to your flyers. Everyone’s gonna be there for their final act.”

“Who is this band?” Tron asked.

“As you’ve seen from Yori’s clever little flyer placer, they’re billed as _The Schismatronics_ , but since that's a little long, they call themselves, simply, _The Skizz_. Couple of MP4 friends of mine, we go way back.”

“Schismatronics,” Yori remarked. “Like _schism_ , huh? Nice touch.”

“What kinds of music will they play?” Tron asked.

“They’ll start out easy, liven up the crowd with some empty stuff about movement, energy, the usual. Citizens of Purgos will be used to it by now—I’ve been slipping their backing tracks alongside Clu-Demotivational-Broadcasts every day, you know, getting the public used to their sound. No one’s noticed it yet.” 

“Genius.” Tron and Yori said it in unison, and Ram beamed.

“Might as well take advantage of the brainwashing to do more brainwashing, eh?” Ram laughed. “Yeah, The Skizz, they’ll start off easy, but they’ll build. Aaaand they’ll _build_ , and then, before the crowd knows it, _whoosh_ , they’re all standing up on a skyscraper of music and ideas, up so high they can practically _taste_ the user world, and _that_ is where The Skizz’s final number will go, and _that_ my _friends_ , is where we might need to brace for fiery incoming missiles.”

Ram’s words sent hope shivering all around Tron’s circuits. He nodded, pressing his lips together. This was good.

“Oh!” Ram exclaimed. “Speaking of fiery missiles, you should hear the remixes they make of Clu’s speeches. Awful, _glorious_ stuff. Just… truly magnificent pieces of trash. It is a crying shame I can’t sneak _those_ masterpieces into the loudspeakers.”

Tron leaned forward. “Oh?”

“Do you have a recording somewhere you might feel inclined to bless us with?” Yori giggled. 

Ram’s eyebrows quirked. “As a matter of fact, I—”

Ram’s radio buzzed with an all-over flicker of green, and Tron flinched, seizing Yori’s hand instinctively.

“That’s them!” Ram looked up, down, up, and down again. “Able and Cyrus! They’ve been spotted.”

“And?” Yori asked, freeing her hand from Tron’s vise grip, running it up and down his upper arm instead. 

Ram chewed the side of his mouth. “Looks like they were apprehended under the W6 Overpass.” 

_Apprehended_. Every one of Tron’s processes slammed to a halt.

“Ah,” Ram continued, as though he hadn’t just said _apprehended_ , as though his vocal processor was perfectly undamaged after that awful Recognizer of a word had just come crashing out of it. “W6 Overpass, that’d be Frontier Nodes territory.”

“Frontier Nodes?” Yori asked. “ _Territory_?”

“C’mon, we gotta go.” Ram leaped to his feet. “The Frontier Nodes don’t like Clu, but they don’t play nice with ad programs coloring on their walls, either.”

Tron got to his feet and ran down the tunnel after Ram, readying all his processes to fight as he’d never fought before.

“Hey, Ram,” Yori said. 

“What’s up?”

“What was the third byte of news?”

“Oh! Of course.” Ram backed away from the lock, glancing around the dark tunnel, although they were quite alone. “Some of my external sources—my network beyond Purgos—they’ve uh… they’ve been detecting energy pulses.” 

“Energy pulses?” 

“Yep. Way, way out in the outlands. Opposite side of the Grid from you.”

Tron narrowed his eyes. “What do you calculate they are?”

Ram was slow in answering. “Well, no one knows for sure.” He let the silence stretch again. “They could be anything.”

“You have a guess?”

“Oh, I’ve got a guess, all right.” Ram grinned, quirked his eyebrows, and turned back to the lock. “But guessing on insufficient data, my friend, is a rather dangerous course of action. It might inspire something like hope.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part of this chapter inspired by:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gob0nnGSeDs


	27. Room for Mercy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Able and Cyrus try to break out of prison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q: How many subverted references to The Stranger & No Bounds can I fit into this chapter?  
> A: Hella.

Able was not a fan of Purgos’ new look. He wasn’t thrilled with the dingy, red-lit basement he and Cyrus had just been tossed into. And he really wasn’t thrilled that the most powerful combat plugin dealers in the city had confiscated his flyer placer, laden with invitations to a concert that didn’t quite exist yet. Able wasn’t sure about the relations between Purgos’ illegal arms dealers and the Occupation, but he figured there was little room for mercy in those relations. Reports of their insurgency were likely well on the way to Clu by now.

He looked over at Cyrus. The kid was lying on the floor, staring heavy-lidded into nothing. 

“You okay, Cyrus?”

“Mhm.”

“Still tired?”

Cyrus shrugged.

Able rubbed his chin, debating whether or not a sermon about the power of positive thinking would make Cyrus feel better. No, he decided. Not in the least. He kept quiet, listening to the thrum of a motor somewhere in the wall at his back, no doubt powering the force field that buzzed through the orange-lit grate standing between them and their discs. Beyond the buzzing grate, their discs were chained against the opposite wall of the basement, close enough to sense, too far to sync properly, humming with tantalizing energy. 

It was a cruel torture tactic, but an efficient one.

Despite his annoyance at this fact, and the rapidly shrinking chance of ending the cycle in one piece, the mechanic in Able appreciated the prison’s design. He said as much. “The design of this place is _exquisite_. Props to the Frontier Nodes. I ought to take notes.”

“Right, for all those prisons you’re gonna build,” Cyrus muttered. 

“Touché.” Able chuckled. “Then again, you never know. I might need to build a better fence around my garage. Keep the Occupation away from my bikes.”

Cyrus sighed, a long, heavy sigh, and rolled onto his side. “Hope the others are doing okay.”

“Oh, they’re fine, so long as T’s energy implant holds out,” Able said. “They’re probably on their way to get us out of here as we speak.”

“Now they’re gonna have to come rescue us. We’re gonna miss our rendezvous with Ram. The revolution will lose precious time… and the mission… will fail.” Cyrus flopped over, facedown on the floor. “All because of my own negligence. Users, how could I have been so careless? One job, Able. I had. _One. Job_.”

Able clicked his tongue against his teeth. Cyrus was right, entirely right, but melodramatics would not get them any closer to freedom. “Chin up, kid,” Able said, in his most no-nonsense voice. “Use that sentry-level scanner of yours and keep looking for a weakness in the cell.”

“I’ve _been_ looking!” Cyrus cried, voice muffled by the floor.

“I know, I know you have.” Able grinned. “Just trying to keep your mind off things is all.”

“In a few micros, Able, we’re going to start feeling the effects of our missing discs. In one milli, we’ll start losing chunks of our memory. Two millis? We’ll never be able to get our minds _back on things_. We’ll lose our identities!” 

“Cyrus, listen, I know it’s tight right now. It is tight. But we gotta stay calm, kid! Okay? _Calm._ Panicking never got anyone out of a tight situation.”

“Mmmm. Unlike scanning for something that isn’t there.”

“Searching for something that _might be_ is better than moping over something that cannot be changed, and that’s the truth,” Able said, trying to keep the snap out of his voice. “Take it from an old mechanic, Cyrus. No safeguard is invulnerable. All prisons have a key. We just gotta know where to look.”

Cyrus sat up, resting his chin on his knees, staring intently into the middle ground. Eventually, he nodded. “You got the right idea. We can’t just give up. _Tron_ wouldn’t.”

“That’s the spirit,” Able said. Tron also would have done a good deal more jaw-punching than he or Cyrus had, but he kept this intuition to himself.

“You got the right idea, Able,” Cyrus repeated. “There is a way out. There’s always… a way… out.” Cyrus’ eyes glinted with a distant light. “And if we are to escape, it will be by our captors’ hands.” 

“Say what?”

“Well, our captors have the key, right? Able, we’re gonna get that key.”

“And just how are we gonna do that?”

“I’ll think of something. Get them to open this door. The slightest gap, that’s all we need. Then we can bust out of here, knock ’em out.” Cyrus gave the air a swift one-two punch. “Like Tron.”

“Okay! So. Say we _do_ get out, what then? There are at least ten more of them up top, and sure, maybe _you_ can fight them off, but what about me? I don’t have any combat coding in me.”

Cyrus was silent for five entire nanos. “Really?”

“Not one subroutine of it. Heh. I keep meaning to learn, next cycle, _next_ cycle, but you know how it is. Maybe next cycle.”

“Why didn’t you say so earlier? I’d have trained you in a nano.”

“Maybe next cycle.”

“We need to get you trained, program!” Cyrus shook his head. “No combat code. How are you still rezzed?”

Able laughed. “A little diplomacy goes a long way. See, I’ve always been okay with sitting back, peaceably, letting the scrappier programs fight it out. Now that I’m part of a… a _concert advertising campaign_ , maybe I ought to learn a thing or two.” 

Cyrus’ eyes lit up. He leaned forward, ready to train Able on the spot, but the clanking sound of an opening trapdoor silenced him.

A guard lumbered down the stairs -- indeed, lumbering was the only word one could use to describe such a program. He was tall—taller, perhaps, than Tron—and far heavier. If he and a lightrunner collided in the street, Able wouldn’t place his bets on the lightrunner. His eyes were pale and sharp, colder than Outlands ice. Tossing the prisoners a bored glance, the guard moved towards the wall where their discs hung.

He wasn’t interested in the discs, but the hidden cabinets underneath, and somehow, this worried Able more. Likely, this guy was sent to shake them up a bit and see what information fell out. He shot a hurried ping to Cyrus. _I can’t reach him—can you scan for his identity?_

Cyrus’ reply was quick. _Already done. That’s Malloc. He’s the one that pulled me down here._

The guard—Malloc—opened a drawer and took out a broken sentry’s staff. He cracked it against his head until the end sparked to a dull glow.

 _Well, this is going to be pleasant_ , Cyrus pinged Able.

 _Just let me do the talking._ Able cleared his throat, put on his best smile, and waved to the guards. “Excuse me!”

Their captor turned slowly, head forward, glaring with impressive aggression. 

“Malloc, right?” Able pulled out the warm tone he used to mollify difficult customers. “Hi. Could we talk for a second? I think there’s been some misunderstanding.”

The guard tilted his head.

 _Able, what are you doing?_ Cyrus pinged him.

 _Stalling,_ Able replied. He cleared his throat. “We’re just a couple of advertisers, just trying to earn some energy rations. You know how it is.”

Malloc lunged towards the prison grate. “Nice try, traitor. We know who you are. We know your type. And you’re gonna derezz for it. Right after you lose your cubes up here.” He tapped the staff against his head.

“Traitor? We were just following orders—”

“SILENCE!” Malloc clanged the staff against the grate, sending up a spatter of broken orange light. “Yeah, you’re gonna derezz for it, all right. Unless you tell us what we want to know.”

“Well, that shouldn’t be a problem!” Able cried. “We’ll tell you everything.” To Cyrus, he pinged, _I’ll tell them everything._ You _keep quiet_.

“Oh, really, just like that, huh? Not even gonna put up a fight?” He laughed. “I see Zemblan’s been hiring nothing but pathetic bitbrains to do his dirty work for him.”

“Zemblan?” Able asked.

 _Clu put him in charge of the city_ , Cyrus pinged him.

Able laughed, clapping his hands. “Man, you think we’re working for _Zemblan_?” 

Malloc matched Able’s laughter. “Think? _Think_?” The laughter faded, ice-pale face turning stony once more. “We _know_! Caught six of your kind sniffing around our territory since Clu moved in. What we do ain’t no business of Clu’s. And you know what we’ve done with them? Huh? Go on, guess.”

Able shrugged.

“ _Derezzed them_ , that’s what,” hissed Malloc. “Slowly. Pixel… by… pixel… any guesses why?”

“’Cuz they wouldn’t talk,” Able replied. “Well look, I’m ready to talk!”

“You catch on quick. Now. Tell us what you were doing on that street, and don’t give us any crap about being ad programs, because no ad program’s stupid or well-paid enough to post concert invites in a cycle like this.”

Shooting Cyrus one last ping to keep silent, Able weighed his options. If the guard was being honest, the Frontier Nodes might be good allies for the revolution. In that case, it would be useful to tell them the truth, or part of it. On the other hand, it might all be a lie, intended to sniff out rebels. 

“Now hang on,” Able began, carefully. “I don’t like Clu sticking his nose in my business any more than you do. What makes you so sure we’re spies, huh?”

“What honest program goes around with fully encrypted discs?” Malloc shook his head. 

“ _Smart_ programs go around with encryption,” Able said. “C’mon, you’ve got to have at least some encryption on you!”

“Then there’s your propaganda posters. Mmmmmhm. Very interesting. Good cover. Almost too good.”

 _Users, this guy ever actually interrogated a program before?_ Cyrus inquired.

Able had the sudden, hysterical urge to laugh. He turned it into a cough.

“See, your flyer placers,” Malloc continued. “They bypassed all of our security. Cleanest hack we’ve ever seen. We see that, we start thinking that maybe you’ve got permissions. Permissions of the sort only a Sysadmin’s elite could obtain. So why don’t we cut the nonsense, huh?”

Able rubbed his chin. Malloc couldn’t be lying. He wasn’t a particularly good actor—his whole intimidation show could use some rehearsing—but there was real anger whenever Malloc mentioned the Sysadmin. The slight cinching of the lips. The dark flash in the eyes. The hunching of the shoulders. Yeah, this program hated Clu’s guts. 

And there was a ping from Cyrus, sitting at the edge of his thoughts. _I know I’m supposed to not talk, but this guy is very anti-Clu. Use that._

Able nodded, and took the plunge. “You think only a Sysadmin could get tech like this?” he asked. “Come on. Look at the backlog in the wall. Look at the way that thing handled all your attempts to keep it from writing on the wall. Your security system gave it everything, and it guessed your system’s moves at every turn. That’s not permissions, that’s good hacking. Whoever made this device tested it, again and again, against every possible anti-vandalism measure known to the system, and it got through. Now what does that tell you?”

“You gonna tell me? Or am I gonna have to derezz the kid?”

Able raised his hands, palms facing out. “Clu would’ve gotten through this door in an instant. Program doesn’t even need to hack—he can already access everything by asking the Grid nicely.” 

Another ping from Cyrus, quick and somewhat jumbled. _Anti-Clu != Pro-Tron._

Able slammed down a barrier on all ping channels. “Whoever helped make _this_ device knows the system’s defenses well,” he said. “Better than anybody, in fact… and yet, he doesn’t have the permission to get through them anymore.”

Malloc narrowed his eyes.

“Now tell me.” Able smiled pleasantly. “Who knows the system’s defense mechanisms best?”

“Tron’s derezzed,” Malloc snapped.

“Huh, that’s funny,” Able said. “The program that told me to post these flyers a few micros ago seemed pretty _rezzed_ to me.”

Malloc leaned in close to the prison. “You best not be throwin‘ me a trojan horse.”

“You think any program could keep Tron in prison for long?” Able also leaned close, close enough to hear the buzz of electricity running deep within the grate. “Maybe he did get free. Maybe he didn't. All I know for sure is, the Grid’s still a prisoner of Clu.” Able narrowed his eyes. “But we don't intend to keep it that way.”

“What are you saying, program?” 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Cyrus spoke up, in a soft, strange voice that Able had never heard him use before. “There’s an uprising coming, my friend. It’s gonna be soon, and it’s gonna be powerful, and it’s gonna chew up Clu and feed him to the gridbugs.”

Malloc stepped back, vision turning inward, scratching the back of his neck with the middle of the lightstaff. Able could see the gears turning, and knew he couldn’t give Malloc time to decide.

“Do you want in?” he pressed.

“Shut up,” Malloc fired back. “This the kind of thing a program’s gotta think about.”

Cyrus sighed, rubbing his eyes.

“If you give us our discs,” Able tried, “we could unencrypt them and show you proof, if proof is what you need.”

“Don’t push it, program.” Malloc’s stare moved off into the middle ground as he pondered.

Able waited, trying not to fidget. He put his hand briefly on Cyrus’ shoulder, willing him to take courage. Cyrus shrugged him off.

Somewhere high above them, in the free and open Grid, an alarm began to sound.

A micro passed.

Malloc’s mind was still puzzling, but there was something wrong. Able couldn’t tell what, but he knew something was up. Malloc could hardly stand still. He kept twisting his head, pressing his lips together, twitching his fingers as though dying to scratch an unbearable itch.

And still the alarm blared.

At last, Cyrus broke the silence. “I could help you with that, you know.” 

Malloc faced the kid with a snarl. “What?”

“That virus.”

It was Able’s turn to round on Cyrus. “ _What_?”

“’Cuz letting an ad program root around in my head’s gonna cure me,” muttered Malloc. “Frag off. Nice try. Not letting you loose.”

“Come on, we both know I’m not an ad program,” Cyrus said. “That thing you’ve got in your head, that’s a Skironian virus. Rare, hard to detect. It attaches to programs with weak security around their visual input processors. Probably picked it up in the Bismuth pools.”

“I ain’t been to Bismuth in—”

“Eight cycles?” Cyrus cut in.

The guard looked stunned.

“Because that’s _exactly_ how long that thing’s been in your head… by the looks of it. It’s reached your eyes.” There was an edge in Cyrus’ voice, concern verging on panic. “You’ll lose visual processing power within the cycle if you don’t get it taken care of soon.”

Able stared at the kid, trying to decide if his worry was for the guard or their predicament.

“I’ll run the risk,” grunted Malloc. “Rather go blind than face my boss after letting you out on purpose.”

“If you go blind, your boss will have no use for you,” Cyrus returned. “The procedure only takes a milli.”

“Have you got a virus eating your _hearing_ processors? Shut up!” Malloc clanged his lightstaff against the grate.

Cyrus rolled his eyes, turning away.

 _Nice try, kid_ , Able pinged.

Cyrus shook his head. _That virus is eating him alive, Able._

 _Ah, so you’re trying the old win-over-your-enemies-and-they’ll-just-let-you-walk trick!_ Able smiled politely at the guard. _I like that one. My personal favorite. I’ve gotten a lot of uppity customers out of my hair with that one._

_I don’t care if I walk. I just wanna kill that virus._

Able grinned. _You’re one lousy ad program_.

Cyrus turned back to the guard, flinging his arms out. “Say I do make a run for it. Then what? I counted 20 of your people up there. I am only _one_. Besides, why would I want to escape? The way I see it, I’m not in my enemy’s camp.”

The guard looked at the ground, and Able saw weariness, deep weariness, in his pale eyes.

“We’re on the same side, you and me,” Cyrus exclaimed. “We’re both sick and tired of living under Clu’s thumb, always looking over our shoulder, always living in fear that the slightest wayward movement, the slightest misheard slip of the tongue, will get us dragged off to Clu’s circus, or derezzed.”

Able kept his eyes fixed on the floor, afraid the guard would catch Cyrus’ deception in Able’s eyes.

“Please.” Cyrus held out his hands. “I’m on your side in this. Both of us are. I can help you; but I’m gonna need you to trust me.”

Malloc sighed, slamming the end of the lightstaff into the ground. “Glitch, I’ve been going to medics for eight cycles. Ain’t none of them able to fix me. Don’t think you can.”

“I can,” Cyrus declared. 

The guard sighed again. “What do I gotta do, kid?”

“First, you need to trust me. Do you trust me?”

“I don’t trust you farther than I can spit, but like you said, there’s thirty-two Frontier Nodes up there. If you knock me out, I’ve got cover.”

 _Thirty-two_. Able logged the number.

“What I’m hearing is, you trust me,” Cyrus grinned. “A little.”

“A very little.”

“Okay. Unfortunately, the procedure can’t be done through this grate. I’ll need to actually make contact with your shell.”

“Nah, forget it. Forget it. Letting you out, no can do.”

“Listen, program!” Cyrus exploded. “We’ve already established we’re on the same team. Do you want that virus out of your head, or not?”

Able rubbed his forehead. “I know what I would say.”

“Fine,” said Malloc, after a long silence. He touched a mechanism on the outside of the cell. The everpresent whine of electricity fizzled into a low hum, then stopped completely as the glow faded from the grate. Keeping the lightstaff at the ready, Malloc slid a code-key from a pocket hidden somewhere in his sleeve. He unlocked the door, and Cyrus was hardly a step out before Malloc had rezzed a restraint around Cyrus’ upper arm, kicked the cell door shut, and flung Cyrus against the wall.

“Ow -- hey, c’mon,” Cyrus said. “I’m not gonna fight back. I wanna help you.”

“Keep your glitching mouth shut,” Malloc ordered, transferring the restraint to a code lock in the wall.

Able kept his eyes on Malloc’s face, all the time tracking the position of that key until the guard reactivated the force field, and slipped it back into his sleeve. 

Malloc stood before Cyrus. “One wrong move, program, and you’re dead.”

“Understood,” Cyrus said, quietly. “Please, try not to move. This procedure is only as painless as you make it. Turn around, please.”

“Hm.”

“Tell me,” Cyrus asked, placing his left hand carefully on the guard’s head. “Are the Bismuth pools really as nice as they say?”

“I see, I see what you’re trying to do kid, I see. Trying to get me distracted.”

“Correct,” Cyrus said, his voice calm, pacifying. Able had heard that voice many times throughout the last cycle. It was the voice Cyrus used every time he helped Tron get up and walk again. “The less you think about the procedure, the easier it is for me, and the faster the virus will be out.”

“You’re the expert.” Malloc’s own voice was caustic.

“That’s right. Now, I’ve never been to the Bismuth pools,” Cyrus continued, pressing his right thumb between Malloc’s eyes. “Always wanted to go, but I never had the right permissions to get in. You, sir, must be one fortunate program.”

The guard grunted. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“Could you tell me what it’s like there?”

The guard laughed a great, rough laugh, and launched into a rather colorful description that was less about the pools and more about the sirens that worked there. As he spoke, a miracle took place. Malloc relaxed more and more, lulled nearly into sleep mode by Cyrus’ quiet questions, and the sound of his own voice. The whole time, Cyrus held perfectly still, one hand on the guard’s head, the other fixed over Malloc’s eyes, moving only the thumb, left and right, left and right.

It was the sort of thing you would miss entirely at first glance, but once you saw it, you couldn’t stop seeing it: that barely-visible, dimly glittering _something_ oozing from Malloc’s head, draped all up and down the length of Cyrus’ left arm. The sight of it made Able flinch, as if he’d opened a cabinet of energy and discovered a colony of codeworms. He didn’t understand how Cyrus could be so calm.

At last, Cyrus took a deep breath, and leaned away from the guard, holding the virus in front of him, far from his own head, staring in interest. 

The virus seemed to have many heads, all appearing at once, and it was rearing and snapping, trying to reach Cyrus’ face.

The thought of that thing, coiled for eight cycles around the guard’s logical processors, was enough to make anyone feel sick. 

Able removed the block on his ping channel, waited for the outrage-filled backlog of Cyrus’ delayed pings to clear, then said: _I see why you were so keen on killing that thing. Good work._

Cyrus flashed him a smile, quickly ducking away with a grimace as the virus surged up toward his face once more. _Now comes the hard part. Killing it without letting it get me. I need you to stand back._

 _What?_ Able asked.

_Gonna throw this thing at the grate. Electrocute it._

_What?!_

_No other option. I don’t have a disc._

_What if it goes through the grate?_

_It won’t._

_What if it moves in midair?_

_Then we’re glitched. But it won’t come to that. Please, stand back._

Able narrowed his eyes at Cyrus, backing into the farthest corner of the prison, watching Cyrus bite his lip, pull his arms back, and fling the virus right at him.

It hit the grate in a shower of sparks, and Able squeezed his eyes shut, audio processors rattled with a thin wail, robotic and haunting, almost imperceptible. The sparks died down, leaving behind a strange, yellowish sludge, crawling down the grate, fizzling to nothing before it reached the ground.

 _It’s dead,_ Cyrus pinged.

Able looked through the sludge at Malloc, still dazed. _Cyrus! Knock him out before he wakes up._

_I’ll try. This is not a great angle._

Footsteps were thudding overhead.

 _Hurry!_ Able pinged.

And Malloc flinched awake, right as Cyrus moved his arm. The blow landed on Malloc’s shoulder-pad instead.

Malloc turned in an instant, lightstaff mere pixels from Cyrus’ face. “What was that, program? Huh? What was that?”

“You -- you went to sleep for a second,” Cyrus said, quickly. “I was trying to wake you up before someone saw.”

Malloc blinked, tilted his head one way, then the other, blinking some more.

“How about it? You feel better?”

A slow smile spread over Malloc’s face, and the weariness lifted from his features. “Better? I feel _newly-rezzed_ , program!” And Malloc laughed. “Hey, that ain’t a half-bad trick. You’re all right, program. You’re all right.”

Cyrus smiled, but his hands were shaking, and his eyes kept traveling over to the discs, shining on the far wall.

The footsteps were right overhead now, and the trapdoor clanked.

Quickly, Malloc detached Cyrus from the wall. “Nothing personal,” he said, pushing him back into the cell. “You know how it is.”

Cyrus collapsed, shivering violently, cradling his left arm in a strange manner. Able wrapped his arms around him, and for once, the kid didn't wriggle away.

Another program ran down the stairs. “Malloc, we got a problem. Need you up top.”

“Yes sir, what’s the issue?”

“Got a program out in the courtyard. Tall, scary, um, no recognizable circuitry.”

 _Hey, you hear that?_ Able pinged to Cyrus. Cyrus didn’t move.

“Yeah?” Malloc crossed his arms. “So, take him out. We got room for one more down here.”

“Um…” The program glanced back up the stairs. “We would, but he’s already in the laser tower. He took out our defense… took everyone’s disc… look, he even got my disc. Look.” He turned, pointing at his empty disc dock. “No disc. Uh. He wants a trade, prisoners for the discs. Boss wants us both up there.”

“Right. You go on ahead, I need to double-secure the prison first.”

“Sir.” The program saluted, and ran back up the stairs.

“Hey, Malloc,” Cyrus said, looking up. “Tell your boss what I did.”

“Kept your word, didn’t fight back, healed me of that glitched virus?” Malloc nodded, moving towards the opposite wall, detaching both identity discs in a single twist. “You got a deal, kid. You earned my respect. And these.” He opened the door, and slid them into the cell. 

Cyrus scrambled for the discs, kicking one of them over to Able, slamming the other one against his back with such urgency, Able worried he’d break something.

Able reattached his with more caution. It slid into place with an echoing click, and the world went white.

Resync. 

Like pure, unrefined energy after a long, long cycle of deprivation, refreshing and terrible. Never again, Able vowed, never, never, would he lose contact with his identity disc. Slowly, he relaxed, and the world came back into focus.

Cyrus was leaning forward, head in his hands, and his hands were ridged and burned all over, black and yellow, from the virus. The lacerations swirled all the way up his left arm.

“Hey,” Able said. “You all right?”

Cyrus lifted his head. “Yeah.” 

“I’m proud of you.”

“Okay.” The kid lifted one shoulder. “Why?”

“You kept your nerve. Thought on your feet. That’s good.”

“Wasn’t enough,” Cyrus sighed. “We’re still trapped.”

“Oh, none of that, now,” Able said. “You healed him. That’s gotta count for something.”

Cyrus shrugged, both shoulders this time, but there was a little spark of hope in his eyes.

“Yeah, we’re trapped,” Able pressed. “And _yeah_ , it _sucks_. But kid, you showed him what our revolution, at its core, is really about. You did good, kid. Real good.”

“Really?”

“Program, I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it! And I say this, too: Tron would be proud.”

And Cyrus beamed.

Footsteps sounded above them, and Malloc lumbered back down the stairs, brandishing the code key like a flag of celebration. “Greetings, programs,” he said, and there was almost kindness in his voice. “Seems you have a visitor. How’s freedom sound?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I might...  
> <_<  
> >_>  
> post more than once today? we shall see.


	28. Ghost Processes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the ISO safehouse, Cyrus discovers the fate of an old friend. Also, Tron attempts to give him a pep talk.

Cyrus kept quiet as Ram led them under the city’s edge and up into the Outlands. There was no end of conversation, however, because Able wanted to know just how the others had managed to rescue them, and Yori wanted to know just how Able and Cyrus managed to obtain the Frontier Nodes’ protection for the concert at Signal9.

The attack began with an explosion, Yori happily explained, caused by her signature move: an energy reroute in some nearby power circuits. Undercover of this diversion, Ram hacked an unwatched firewall, and got Tron into the enclosure. Tron and Ram caused a ruckus, stealing the disc of every program they met, while Yori stole up into the laser tower. Once she got control of the tower, the fight was won. Lasers were Yori’s primary directive, and she could cause any amount of chaos with a single touch.

“And she does it beautifully,” Tron added.

“That I do,” Yori replied.

Then Able told them about what Cyrus had done on the inside, healing the guard of his virus with one arm chained to the wall. As a gesture of thanks (and a request that the renegade group never attack their encampment again), the Frontier Nodes would be attending the concert at Signal9.

“So, in the end,” said Able, “Cyrus getting us captured was a good thing.”

“Yeah,” Cyrus said, and grinned. “That was my plan from the beginning, naturally.”

“You programs need to get kidnapped more often,” Ram laughed.

“A Skironian virus, was it?” Tron asked.

“Correct.”

“Well done.” Tron nodded. “Those things are damn near impossible to derezz, especially without a disc. You showed real resourcefulness, program.”

 _Well done_. Tron thought he'd done well. Cyrus nodded, playing the words over and over in his mind. They filled his core with a warm glow of pride, and it was a while before he noticed how cold the air had become. It was so cold, his breath formed clouds in front of his face.

“Sure is cold,” Ram said, his voice clipped by a shiver. “Low, low energy pockets ’round here. Tron, you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Tron said. “Yori, Cyrus? Able? All okay?”

They hummed their assent.

“Okay, we’re crossing over into the null-energy pocket!” Ram’s voice was entirely too cheery, in Cyrus’ opinion, for someone who was about to venture into a null-energy pocket. “Flashlights on, everyone.”

They followed Ram through a maze of darkened wireframes that had once been apartments, long abandoned, glittering with ice in the renegades’ headlamps. The naked light of their lamps made the shadows around them too dark. It was too cold for viruses, but Cyrus sensed there was something else in the shadows, lurking behind the light. Anything could be hiding just around the corner, trailing behind him, lurking in the corner of his eye.

And he remembered something, a mantra from his Beta training, a warning to every program in the virus detection kit. Cold enough for viruses didn’t mean cold enough for malware.

The memory shot a jolt of pure panic through Cyrus’ circuits, colder than the air and the ice, and for one freezing, terrifying moment, he thought he would stall out, and be left behind in that wasteland.

He looked, on instinct, at Tron. 

He looked at his insignia, at the scars on his face. Tron had witnessed worse horrors than a few cold shadows, and those things had not been the end of him. He was still here, still alive. Head up, one powerful arm on Yori’s back, not a hint of hesitation in his steps. Tron did not fear the darkness, or anything in it, and the darkness seemed to know this, and the shadows seemed to fall back before his feet.

Cyrus took a deep, deep breath, and let it out, watching it freeze in the beam of his flashlight. He stood up as tall as he could, trying to walk with strength. He would be as fearless as Tron. He would be . His hands were only shaking from the cold. 

“Here it is!” Ram cried, joyous as ever. “Mind your step, programs.” 

They descended down the hidden stairwell, into a darkness so entire, it was a while before their flashlights picked up anything ahead.

At the bottom of the stairwell, Cyrus looked around. It was an old subway line, but the tracks had burst from their moorings and the floor sloped downward at an alarming angle, down into the waiting abyss.

“I remember this place,” Tron said, and it echoed down the tunnel, _I remember this place, I remember this place, this place, this place_. “The old B-line.”

“Many antics went down within its hallowed halls,” Ram said, and the echo twisted the smile in his voice into something eerie. “Even long after it was closed down.”

“Why was it closed down?” Cyrus asked.

“You see this place?” Ram pointed his flashlight at the busted tracks. “It’s practically derezzing around us.” 

“But it could be fixed,” said Cyrus. “Were there no attempts made to salvage it?”

“Yeah, one or two. Nothing really stuck, everyone knew it was a vain effort. Something to do with the code in this place. It’s structurally unsound. Volatile. This place was never meant to house a tunnel.” Ram chuckled. “It is, however, a perfect place for codeworms to build their nests. Careful where you step.”

“Lovely,” Yori shivered.

Once he ensured there were no codeworm nests in his immediate path, Cyrus pointed his flashlight up at the subway walls as they walked.

There was writing on the walls, strange hieroglyphics, fragmented warnings, Beta-like jokes, interlinked insignias, and anti-Clu diatribes. The light was long dead, but the paths cut by the rebel circuits still remained.

“Who wrote this?” Cyrus asked, pointing to a series of entries, dated by the millicycle, cataloging the number of ISOs killed and Basics repurposed. 

“Ghost processes,” Ram said.

“Ghost processes?” Tron repeated, with a sarcastic grin.

“That's right.” The smile had faded from Ram's voice. “In one way or another.” 

Cyrus shivered.

Just before the tunnel ended, a strange-smelling draft of air hit them, colder than anything Cyrus had ever felt. He stood on tiptoe, looking over Ram’s shoulder, and saw they were at a ledge, facing a narrow crevice down into the Grid.

“There’s a ladder here,” Ram said, stepping into the crevice. “Down we go.”

And down they went, down, down, down, until it was almost too cold and too dark to move. The air sapped Cyrus’ energy with every step he took, and he hoped Tron, with his damaged energy circulation unit, was doing okay.

Finally, they reached the bottom, and Cyrus’ feet buzzed with static everywhere he touched down. 

“Welcome, programs, to the ultimate limit of the Grid,” Ram said. “Careful how you walk. If we go any further down, we break into undefined space.”

“Is it... safe for us to be here?” Tron asked.

“It is safe. Not quite the realm of the invisible yet, my friends.” Ram chuckled. “Now, where the glitching gridbugs is that… switch… ah! Here it is.”

A rectangle of gray light opened before their eyes, and Cyrus blinked and blinked until the details of the safehouse came into view, a long, low-ceilinged place stretching out before him. 

The ISOs moved about slowly, some in groups, others solitary, silent and still, half-awake.

The whole place was silent, and though Cyrus knew how adept the ISOs were at speaking without words -- less like pinging, more like seeing -- he remembered how full of laughter and music and words their cities had been. A chill settled deep in his core.

He lost track of Ram’s explanations and only saw the faces as they stared back at him, all wide, fearful eyes and light-patterned skin. So many ISOs. So many, and so many were young. Mere cycles old.

Ram brought them to the medical wing, and again Cyrus tried to pay attention to his spiel. “We’re trying our best,” he said. “Their code is different than ours. Not even Flynn understood it in full. Our Basic medics, they’re trying their best, but…”

Cyrus turned away. Several mats down, an ISO lay with his back to them, hexagon glowing on the right arm, right leg badly damaged below the knee. There was something familiar about him, even from this distance, even from the back. 

Breaking away from the group, Cyrus ran to the ISO’s side. He had to see his face, had to know for sure, even though he knew what he would find before he got there. Not many ISOs had their mark on the right arm.

“Diffie,” Cyrus said, feeling rather like the floor was falling out from underneath him, sending him down into static and undefined space. _Please wake up, Diffie. Please…_

The ISO stirred, and opened one eye. “Cy,” they muttered. “I don’t…” Their eye fell shut again, and they grinned. “I don’t have a leg.”

“Wrong,” Cyrus blurted out. “You technically have _a_ leg. Just not two.”

“Stop that. This instant. Too tired for math.”

Cyrus smiled and didn’t feel like smiling. His breathing was too shallow, and he didn’t dare say a word. 

Slowly, Diffie raised one hand up to Cyrus, gripped him around the wrist, and shook twice. It was the way they always ended jai alai matches. “Good to see you again, man,” Diffie mumbled.

Ram was there, somehow, reaching out to touch Cyrus’ shoulder, and Cyrus quickly shrugged away. “A friend of yours?” Ram asked.

Cyrus nodded. For so long he’d missed Diffie, longed for a friend to talk to about all the insanity of the past cycle. Now that Diffie was here, unable to keep their eyes open, leg damaged beyond repair, Cyrus couldn’t think of a single thing worth saying.

“We go… way back,” Diffie said. “We’re ancient history. Back before it was cool to… to go around… removing ISO limbs.”

“You two catch up,” Ram said. “I’m gonna show the others our defense.”

Ram left, and Cyrus sat down, hands clasped around one knee.

“Thought you died,” Diffie said. 

The weakness in Diffie's voice frightened Cyrus.

“After the coup, you were gone. Programs said you died. In that Recognizer crash.”

“Programs were wrong,” Cyrus said. 

“Hmm.”

“What -- I’m sorry -- what happened, Diffie?”

“You mean who got my leg?” They grinned. “’S okay. Clu’s hunting us down, right? I thought I was smart, Cy. Thought I could stay ahead of them. Hiding place to hiding place, safehouse to safehouse, except they were never safe, were they? One day, I wasn’t so lucky. The whole place blew. They got all of them.”

“Except you,” Cyrus said. “Most of you.”

“Like I said. Wasn’t so lucky.”

Cyrus looked down, wanting to tell Diffie how sorry he was, how good it was to see them again, how he would put an end to it, he and Tron, they’d put an end to it, but there was too much to say and not enough words to say it with, and there was an awful ache in his throat from all the things he didn't know how to say.

“I…” Diffie sighed. “I’m scared, Cyrus.”

Cyrus looked up quickly.

Diffie was staring at the ceiling now, up through the layers and layers of ground, up to the sky. “I’m real scared. All the ISOs are. We can sense it.”

“Sense… what?”

“The numbers.” Diffie’s voice was a whisper, a ghost process. “They’re going, Cyrus. Down… down… down. One day, it’ll hit zero.”

“What numbers?” It was getting harder to keep his voice in line.

“ _Our_ numbers,” Diffie replied, and Cyrus’s insides sank. “We’ve lost more than 300 in the last cycle. 300 ISOs, Cy. 300. Do you know what it means? To lose 300?”

And into Cyrus’ mind burst the faces of his team, his friends, the batch of virus detection programs he’d grown up from Beta with, the batch that had all been marked as defective, obsolete before deployment, the batch that promised to have each other’s backs as they traveled from Encom to the Grid. The batch Clu had repurposed in front of Tron. Nearly 700 of them. Cyrus hadn't known all of them personally, but it didn't matter. They'd been a team.

Still, it wasn’t the same. Repurposing could be undone, it had to be. His friends were still there, deep inside, somewhere. They had to be. Those ISOs, however, were gone. Gone forever.

No, he didn’t know what it was like to truly lose 300, but he could imagine. The loss. The hollow where something should be. The helpless, paralyzing fear, as the number got closer to zero -- and all the ISOs here felt it, all of them! They could all see that number, loud in their heads, they could all feel it the instant one of them disappeared forever.

The old ones. The young ones. Oh, too many, too young. They should be playing, smiling, learning how to count up from zero, not down to it!

Cyrus looked back at Diffie, at his hopeful friend’s despairing eyes, and knew he had to say something, he had to try. “I’m scared, too,” he began, trying to sound confident. “This is a scary situation. There’s a lot we don’t know. But Diffie… can I tell you something I do know?”

Diffie gave a weak, almost-smile. “Shoot.”

“There’s another number.” Cyrus fought to keep his breathing even, his voice calm. “And this number… this number isn’t falling, Diffie, it’s rising.”

“What…” Diffie yawned, and winced. “What number?”

“Our allies. Programs who see. Programs who see what Clu’s doing, and hate it with every pixel of their being, Diffie, hate it enough to stand with us and fight. Fight for the ISOs, and the Basics whose minds Clu has taken.”

Cyrus didn’t even know what he was saying anymore, a jumbled mixture of stuff he and Able and Yori and Tron had said to each other throughout those long millicycles in the cave.

“There’s a change coming, Diffie. I’ve seen it. The fact that you all are here, alive, that Tron’s alive, it’s all a sign. Clu will fall. The ISOs will walk free again. I promise. I will fight with all I am to make that happen.” He took Diffie’s arm, and it was cold. “But you’re gonna have to trust me. Can I count on you to do that?”

“Thanks, Cy,” Diffie said, eyes glued shut. “Count on it.” He muttered something else, but Cyrus lost the words. In nanoseconds, Diffie was snoring.

\--

Cyrus wandered away from the medical ward, knowing he should try to catch up with the others.

Instead, he found himself at the far end of the safehouse, beside an energy pool. It was greener than the naturally occurring energy spring beneath their Outlands cave, and Cyrus wondered vaguely how often Ram had to refill it. 

Maybe he had other programs do that.

Other programs. He’d told Diffie the number was rising, but he knew they were losing ISOs faster than they were gaining allies. Would there ever be enough of them to stop Clu? Would they be doomed to live like this forever, in the silent depths of the Grid, while their number up on the surface grew lower and lower?

Would it be Clu who found them first, or insanity?

The static in his feet was creeping up his legs, and his knees were weak, and it was all becoming too heavy to stand up under. He sat beside the pool, staring vacantly into the green ripples.

The edge of the pool was lined with prep code, and Cyrus, desperate to put that sinking number out of his mind, started picking at the material. He’d spent enough time watching Able and Yori bend formless prep into structures, he'd picked up a few tricks. Nothing dramatic, nothing particularly useful, either. Just patterns, carved into the highest layer of the code, easily erasable. Sometimes, when he really concentrated, he could reach the layer underneath, give the section’s hexcode a good twist, and change the color of an entire section.

He began to do that now, turning all the hexagons red. Red, something warm in this cold place. Something bright, bright and neon and distracting, though he knew he shouldn’t be distracting himself. The ISOs didn’t have that privilege. They couldn’t just escape into the red. They were always surrounded by that hopeless, zero-bound, gray.

There were heavy footsteps behind him, but he didn’t turn. He couldn’t move.

Someone sat beside him. “Greetings, program.”

Tron.

“Almost time to leave,” Tron said. “We have a concert to set up for.” 

“Already?” Cyrus asked.

“Already. Cycle’s almost over, Cyrus.”

Cyrus nodded. He’d stand up. In a moment, he’d stand up, and go back to the surface. In a moment. 

“You all right, program?” Tron asked.

Cyrus turned his head. Tron looked tired, absolutely drained to the core. His good eye, usually so sharp and cold, held nothing but concern.

Suddenly, Cyrus couldn’t look at him. Turning back to the energy pool, he rubbed his left eye, then his right, and all the while, Tron was quiet, listening, expecting a reply.

“There is so much suffering,” Cyrus said, at last. “I want to end it. But how can I?” His voice was dangerously close to breaking. “I’m just one program.”

Tron sighed. “Yeah, I know what you mean.” 

Of course. If anyone knew, it would be Tron. 

Tron was quiet for a long time, and then he straightened up, taking a deep breath, and Cyrus braced himself for the inevitable order. On your feet. Time to go. Time’s running out.

“And I think…” Tron began, and his tone was quite different than the one Cyrus expected. “I -- I think with a problem like this, you can’t go it alone. Just do what little you can, when you can. Take it one step at a time. Show up, even when you’re tired. Make the right choices.” 

Cyrus nodded, burning each sentence into his memory.

"We’ll pull through in the end. I know we will." Tron crossed his arms. “And remember, Cyrus, you’re not alone in this. You’re never alone.”

Cyrus nodded again, forced himself to smile. Tron was right, of course he was right. And up on the surface, maybe after a good nap, Cyrus would feel the truth of those words. But here, they did nothing to displace the awful weight of things. The pain would still remain, in the moment and in the memory. Showing up everyday, doing what little part he could, what did these little raindrops mean in this ocean of devastation?

Tron held out his hand. “Come on, program. Time to go do what little we can.”

Cyrus was still for a moment, then he reached out and let Tron pull him to his feet. Despite his great weariness, the security program’s grip was still strong.

They walked back down the long, long room, side by side. 

Cyrus tried to match Tron’s step, confident and sure, fixing his mind on things like hope and happiness. 

Not a number falling down to nothing.

Not the fact that a program would be better off derezzed than trapped in a place like this forever.


	29. The Sign

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The concert of the cycle is at hand, and Signal9 is packed with programs from the Resistance, the Occupation, and everywhere in between.

“There was a bigger turnout than we’d hoped, sir.”

“Ah, yes. … It’s funny, isn’t it?” 

“Sir?”

“The things that stick in your mind? When all society is upside-down, that is. It isn’t loud advertisements anymore, it isn’t bright billboards or words a thousand pixels tall. It’s whispers. Half-hidden flyers down dark alleyways. Words that mean only half of what they seem.”

“Yes… yes sir.”

“But you’re not here for a philosophical debate, are you?”

“No, sir. Status report, sir.”

“Let’s hear it, then. Tell me how it went.”

\--

The renegades had done good work. Signal9 was packed to the walls with programs, so many programs that they ditched the indoor stage idea and put the Schizmatronics on the big, outside stage, surrounded by the natural haze of Purgos and artificial haze piped in around the stage.

“Say what you will about Signal9,” said Ram. “They know how to put on a show.”

Yori had spent an entire millicycle on the light display, and it was sure to be glorious. She took her seat at a distance, because masterpieces like this were best seen from a distance, and distance was a good thing to put between yourself and a metaphorical time bomb.

Cyrus stood in the midst of the chaos, directing traffic, handing out flasks of powerfully refined energy, fistbumping Malloc and the other Frontier Nodes when they arrived, a hurricane of excitement and terror swirling in his core.

And planted in the crowd were hooded programs, whispering among each other, pretending to drop data-fragments of meeting places, pro-ISO ideas, anti-Clu sentiments, always gone before anyone had time to ask. 

And verging in on that section of the city were the sentries, alert for any sign of rebellion.

And the Schizmatronics stood up on stage, in glittering helmets. In armor no one questioned, they stood; behind their instruments, before the neon sign, a sign that burned with golden fire, a sign that read:

SCHISMATRONICS  
~ LIVE @ SIGNAL9 ~

And the audience leaned in, ready.

And with their very first _thump_ of percussion, the system clock wrapped back around to zero, and the next cycle began.

The beat and the tune were familiar somehow, and the hundred-odd programs in attendance were soon dancing as one.

Dancing faster and faster as the music reached an energizing fever pitch, easing back into a slow and comfortable rhythm, and back up again into an angry storm, a scream, a roar, and the Schismatronics had them singing back words they would have second guessed if they’d been sober.

And then, at that point when the crowd was tired enough to stand still, there was a shift.

The music shifted into slow synth, creeping and eerie, a lone minor chord falling over the crowd and freezing the energy in their circuits. A hush fell as the chord grew, building and building to the point of pain, then dying off again.

The silence remained, everyone leaning in and waiting for the drop.

A program, masked, stepped to the microphone and began to sing. It was an unfamiliar song, with many unfamiliar words, a strange, deep timber to it that seemed to hint of things beyond the sky, and meaning beyond the words.

And the great sign shining over the stage slowly dimmed into red, until the audience forgot themselves, forgot the Schizmatronics, forgot Clu. All was darkness, and red backup lights, and the song.

It caught on slowly as the song swelled, through energy-numbed processors and light-dazzled eyes. It was not just any song. It was one of those User songs Flynn had brought to the Grid, and the words told of terrible warning, of darkness and fear and neon gods.

There was rustling somewhere, an unrest in the crowd. Programs were realizing, and the red light and the dark in-between, it buzzed like a live wire. The slightest spark would light it up, they’d surge out the door, trampling each other in their wake, and none would live to break the silence.

And so, as one, they kept silent.

And the voice died away, and the instruments rose in one final chord, a chord that would haunt the audience for the rest of their runtime.

The backup lights went black.

And other lights went black, too, as the neon flickered out of the sign.

SCHISMA

ICS

@

IGNAL9

And all that was left was the message.

TRON  
LIVE S

The sign flashed once, twice, three times. Then all went dark.

\--

“The rumor’s out, sir. We haven’t found a trace of any program matching his description, but… with all due respect, the vain hope itself is enough. They have hope. Their numbers are growing. They’re… spreading, sir, ISO-sympathizers, Betas wanting some chaos and excitement, lower-level service programs who do not -- that is, do not _see_ the wisdom in your energy-conservation policy. And out on the edge of the system, there are energy pulses… unexplained… too random to be a coded message, too regular to be an accident.”

“Huh.”

“Experts are saying it’s a signal, of some kind.”

“A signal, huh? Interesting.”

“Should… Should we not classify it as an emergency, sir? The renegades? The _signal_?”

The Sysadmin turned, and looked on his inferior with ice in his narrowed eyes. “Emergency is _such_ an ugly word, Jarvis.” He chuckled without any mirth at all. “No… no, there won’t be any classifying of emergencies. Let me take care of it. Hm?”

“Yes, sir.” 

“And keep it on the down-low. We wouldn’t want anyone getting hurt. You understand?”

“I understand, sir.”

“Good.”

Clu watched the inferior program until he’d crossed the length of the room, turned at the hexagonal door, made his respects, and disappeared in a swish of orange circuits.

Turning back to his city, glittering in orange, he looked up to the still-blue Outlands, far beyond the realm of things. Blue, natural blue, the way _he’d_ made it, blue like _his_ sky.

“ _Now_ we’re getting somewhere,” Clu said, and he smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND THAT'S THE END OF PART 2! AHHHH thank you to all you amazing people who have read this far. To everyone who left kudos and comments or simply your attention, you're amazing, and I appreciate your existence.  
> I'll be taking a hiatus from posting about the Renegades until late October, to focus on finalizing/posting another story (and possibly editing parts of this one as well).  
> Until then...  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4


	30. Error 403

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> how did we get here?  
> how long has it been?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: nightmares, subtle hints to reality being not all it seems

The first thing he noticed was the light.

Light everywhere, leaking from cracks in the infrastructure, pouring down from the blinding sky.

He’d been there for a while, which was strange because if he knew anything for sure, it was that he should not be here.

There was a maze he’d been walking through for days without finding a way out --  _ days _ \-- and he had to get out.

He didn’t know why, he only knew he had to get out.

But every turn opened into another white-walled corridor, and the light kept getting brighter.

_ You’ve been going forward for too long _ , something whispered.  _ Turn back, before it’s too late. _

He turned, and found himself standing in a doorway.

_ Odd _ , Cyrus thought.  _ Must’ve missed it before. _

There was a young man seated at a desk, his back to Cyrus, typing away on a keyboard, staring endlessly into a black-screened box.

And Cyrus knew he wasn’t supposed to be there, the sensation of  _ Forbidden  _ grew stronger with every step he took, but curiosity won out. He went forward until he was close enough to see every curl in the man’s dark hair, every flashing character in the black screen.

The man was adding characters as he tapped keys, and the air hummed with dread. Something roared in the distance, like waterfalls, like a stadium full of people, tearing paper apart.

_ Run _ , whispered the walls.

The man held down a different key. Characters disappeared from the screen, and the roaring in the distance grew louder, louder and louder and louder.

Appearing and reappearing.

Faceless characters.

It was the way it had always been, back and back into infinity.

He had to get away, far away, before the man turned around.

He was frozen. As he fought to move, to make a sound, to turn away and claw himself from the bright and terrible sky, it sent a shudder through the world, and the light flickered, and the hum of dread became an earthquake, and Cyrus was still paralyzed. He was asleep, that must be it! Asleep under a blinding light. 

He looked up, into the distance, and saw the four squares of Tron’s insignia.

“Cyrus!” Tron cried.

Cyrus tried to respond, but couldn’t make a sound through all the sawdust in his throat.

“Cyrus, we gotta go. Now.”

_ Cyrus _ .

There was a flash of darkness and everything gave a beat. He was trapped inside a heart. 

Darkness, and it knocked him to the heaving ground.

_ Cyrus _ .

Clu’s eyes.

“Cyrus, come on, kid.” Tron’s voice again, Tron’s voice, but it was Clu who stood over him, Clu who offered his hand. “You gotta get up, it’s time to leave.”

Cyrus burst awake with a start, nearly smacking Tron in the face. He fell back on instinct, his breathing ragged.

“You okay?” Tron asked, and it was really, really Tron.

Cyrus, still trying to make sense of the colors and shapes around him, didn’t answer. He was in the powerdown chamber, deep underground, in the ISO safehouse. “Sorry,” Cyrus rasped, rubbing his throat. “Sawdust.”

“ _ What _ ?”

Cyrus stared at Tron, trying to figure out how to describe  _ sawdust _ . What was it? Where had it come from? It had seemed very real in the dream, but Cyrus couldn’t put words to it.

“C’mon,” Tron said. “There’s a group of ISOs ready to be taken to Arjia. We’re late already.”

Cyrus cleared his throat. [ _ Sawdust. Waterfall. Days _ .] He cleared it again.

Tron narrowed his good eye, and sat down beside Cyrus. “Are you all right?”

Cyrus didn’t trust his voice, so he nodded, sitting on his hands to hide their shaking. He didn’t know what he’d seen, or why it had scared him so much, but one thing was certain: He wasn’t going to let the resistance down because of one silly little dream.

“You sure?” Tron asked.

“I’m fine,” Cyrus managed. And he was. It was only a dream.

“Okay, then let’s get a move on it," he said. “I’m going with you on this first trip. I’ll be there every step of the way, so don’t worry about a thing.” Tron hauled himself to his feet and leaned forward, hands on knees, as though that little action had winded him. Even so, he still offered his hand to pull Cyrus up beside him.

For a fractured instant, Cyrus saw Clu instead, Clu in the dream, reaching down to lift him from the ground.

Cyrus stood up on his own, squeezing his eyes shut, rubbing them hard to erase the images. Clu. The box with the symbols. The man who never showed his face.

His breathing stalled out, and he would have sat back down again if it weren’t for Tron’s hand against his shoulder, strong and certain.

“Stay rezzed, program,” Tron said, firm, but not unkind. “We’ve got a long journey ahead.”


	31. Directive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Tron pretends to be okay, Cyrus plays the philosopher, and Tron attempts to offer emotional support.

It had been tricky, getting out of Purgos without seeing a medic, but Tron managed it. He’d catch an earful from Yori, Able, and probably Ram when he got back, but that was a problem for next millicycle.

Truth was, if he saw a medic now, they wouldn’t let him leave the city. 

The first wave of blank panic had hit before the concert, on the way to the ISO hideout. Must have been the low-energy pocket, putting an extra drain on his energy.

It happened again just after the concert. He wasn’t aware of it until he was on the ground, fighting for breath, trying to remember which way was up. Out of habit, he thanked the users he’d been alone, and drank some energy, figuring it would get better on its own.

It hadn’t. 

Tron pushed forward through the cycle by sheer force of will, nothing but static in between his head and his feet. His core ached, and his throat burned, and it felt wrong to move somehow, like each pixel had given itself a twist in a different direction. But Tron had fought through worse pain than this. He knew his limits. He’d be okay. No one had noticed, far as he could tell, and he aimed to keep it that way.

He’d get the energy implant replaced when the mission was done.

\--

Ram’s external network had mapped all the blindspots in Clu’s between-city patrols, and formed a route to Arjia based on those blindspots. It was this route he and Cyrus were on now, rumbling over the uneven ground between cities in a van full of locomotive parts, carefully stacked to hide the thirty-two ISOs huddled underneath.

Tron tried to focus on the ISOs, how scared they must be, how he must stay awake, stay present, for them.

They weren’t even going all the way to Arjia; just to the first checkpoint, Argon Station. Argon Station and back. That was it. Only a millicycle, surely he could hold out for one more millicycle. After that, Cyrus would take over alone, and everything would be fine.

It would be fine.

But each bump in the road made the world spin faster, threatening to turn his power reserves inside out. He crossed his arms, digging his fingers into his sides, and willed himself to stay calm. There would be no repeat of that first millicycle in the cave. He was stronger now, he could keep it together.

He must keep it together.

Keep it together.

Keep it together.

Keep it together--

Cyrus swerved, trying to avoid a mound of broken data on the road, and ended up hitting it sideways. The impact threatened to rattle Tron’s code from its wireframe, and he squeezed his good eye shut, barely catching Cyrus’ muttered apology.

_This was a mistake._

He should’ve just gotten it over with; stayed back, let them poke and prod at his busted-up system, let them replace the damn implant. 

_And let Cyrus go alone?_

Tron forced himself to look up, look at Cyrus. He noted the tension in the kid’s shoulders, noted the tumult in his eyes. He gripped the steering wheel like it was a virus to be strangled, and his right arm shook.

Tron narrowed his good eye, resisting the urge to scan Cyrus for malware or injury on the spot, and tried to figure out the problem from other facts.

The kid hadn’t been getting enough sleep, that was certain; and every time he woke up, he seemed confused. Unnerved. Tron knew exactly what that felt like. He knew, intimately, what it was to wake from some nightmare, whose frigid tendrils reached far beyond sleep mode and held him fast throughout the next cycle, making it so hard to move. Cyrus needed him, and he’d be there every step of the way.

But he did feel awful. And now, driving over the indigo fields beyond Purgos, he was glad he’d let Cyrus drive.

“How are you holding up?” Tron asked, trying to put his focus elsewhere.

“Fine.”

Tron nodded. He didn’t have the energy to keep pressing.

Fortunately, Cyrus did. “You ever think about directives, Tron?” he asked.

“My own directive, yes.”

“Such a central part of our being, but there’s so much mystery to them.” Cyrus glanced at Tron. “Do you think programs are bound to them?”

“Hm.”

“Can we willingly break our directives?”

Tron couldn’t help but smile. He’d forgotten about this side of Cyrus. All throughout that awful cycle in the Outlands cave, he and Cyrus never said much to each other, but there were times he’d be drifting somewhere between sleeping and waking, and he’d hear the kid out in the front area of the cave, chattering away, asking Able and Yori question after question. What-if questions. Questions about code formation. Questions about the users.

He really hoped Cyrus wouldn’t bring users up now, but was happy to be asked any question at all. Took his mind off that glitching energy implant. “Willingly? I don’t know,” he finally answered. 

“If we did,” Cyrus returned, “who’s to say that breaking our directive wasn’t already in our directive? How do we _know_ that we know our full directive?”

Tron shook his head. “It wouldn’t make sense,” he said. “If we didn’t know our full directive, how could we fulfill it efficiently? Makes no sense.”

“That assumes our only purpose in the Grid is to be useful.”

The sentence startled Tron, and something deep in his core twitched. Perhaps he did not serve the users as he did in younger cycles, open and unjaded, but there was something a little too close to heresy in Cyrus’ words. “There is no higher purpose,” he said.

Cyrus glanced back, a strange confusion in his eyes. “What if there is? What if… our purpose is to _find_ our true directive?”

“That’s a terrible directive,” Tron exclaimed.

Cyrus laughed. “I disagree.”

“Do you.”

“Think about it, Tron! I don’t want my purpose in existence to just be: Kill virus. Zip. End of line. No! Seems like it should be more than that. Kill virus, _and then_ …! The possibilities are infinite.”

“Well, by killing viruses, you are making the Grid a better place,” Tron said. “Seems like a noble enough directive to me.”

“Tron, you know the ratio of virus spawning to virus destruction in this system well enough to know _that_ doesn’t mean a thing. Does it make the immediate vicinity safer? Yeah, maybe. For the system as a whole, it does nothing.”

“So.” Tron sighed, pressing his knuckles against his forehead, trying to iron out the ache. “You think your directive is… to find your directive. Seems a little counterproductive.”

“No! My directive is to kill viruses, and something _other_ , which I must find out.”

“Ah.”

“Wonder what would happen if I broke my directive. If I… started a breeding ground for viruses, or something. What do you think would happen? Would I derezz right there?”

Aha. Tron was beginning to see where Cyrus’ head was -- at least, he thought he saw. The increase in responsibility, that had to be it. He’d taken on a lot since their arrival in Purgos. Perhaps the threat of failing that responsibility was weighing heavily on him, enough to give him nightmares. Well! Tron knew all about that, and it was nothing a bit of solid logic couldn’t help. “Cyrus, you ever failed to kill a virus before?”

Cyrus was quiet.

“Well, maybe you haven’t failed yet,” Tron said. “But I’ve failed my directive. Lots of times. And I’ve never derezzed because of it. Felt like derezzing sometimes, it really did, but I’m still here. For better or worse.”

“I understand _that_ ,” Cyrus said. “I have failed. Couple times, actually. But each time, I tried as hard as I could to kill it. My intent was entirely in line with my directive. I’m saying, what if I _purposefully_ tried to break my directive?”

“I don’t know,” Tron said. “But I better not catch you purposefully breeding viruses. It’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

Cyrus squinted ahead at the road, furrowing his forehead, a slow smile brightening his face. “What if…”

Tron sighed. “Yes?”

“What if breaking my directive _was_ my directive all along?” Cyrus said, his voice turned overly thoughtful. “What if it’s the only way we can… _truly_ be free!”

Tron rolled his eyes. “What if the only way you can be free is to flood the Grid with viruses, inflicting pain and deresolution on every program here?”

“Yeah, you’re getting it!”

“I’m beginning to wonder why I let you drive.”

Cyrus laughed, and asked no more questions.

\--

A narrow roadstrip ran between the pilings holding up Argon station. The low-ceilinged cavern at its terminus was used by maintenance workers on break. The mist of the sea obscured the entrance, and the place was impossible to find unless you knew it was there. 

But no place in the system was unknown to Tron.

“Helmet up, and be careful you don’t slip,” Tron ordered Cyrus as they jumped down from the vehicle. 

Cyrus smiled, and, gripping the door of the vehicle, let his feet slide out from under him. “Help,” he said.

“All right, very funny.” Tron got out, staring into the darker cavern ahead. Holding onto the door to keep himself upright, he raised his arm and waved at three programs he sensed, but could not see. Three, Ram said there’d be three of them.

One of them came forward, derezzing her cloak to reveal deep-blue circuits. Tron scanned her quickly. The identity matched the contact Ram had given him. He sensed she was attempting to scan him as well, but she was only a memory allocation program and could not see through his shields. 

There was the sound of splashing footsteps behind him, and Cyrus appeared. 

“Stall her while I make sure the others’ identities match,” Tron ordered in a low voice.

“You got it.” Cyrus stepped forward. “Greetings, program!”

“Hello,” she returned. “Have you brought the cylinder function signatures?”

“Yeah, we got them.” 

It was difficult at a distance, but Tron managed to catch the second program’s ID. He also checked out.

“Users, you maintenance programs have such a cool job,” Cyrus was saying. “All these secret tunnels that no one knows about.”

The contact shifted her feet, crossing her arms. “Yep.”

“You like being in maintenance?”

“You know, it is _so_ much fun,” she said, and turned to Tron with a sigh. “Can we move this along?”

Finally, Tron filtered the third program’s ID from within the dizzying scrambler shield. It matched the third contact Ram had listed, and Tron breathed a sigh of relief. _We’re among friends_ , he pinged to Cyrus, and nodded.

“Right.” Cyrus went to the back of the vehicle, and Tron heard him sliding up the back door, opening the hatch that hid the ISOs. “Greetings, everyone,” the kid hissed a moment later. “Ready for some air?”

And in the next moment, the ISOs were shuffling past, shoulders hunched under their hooded cloaks. The cloaks were thick, designed to mask the circuitry scattered across the ISOs’ skin, but it was not quite enough. Tron spotted flickers as they filed past: facial circuitry, grateful smiles, eyes shining with tears.

So many lives. 

Tron squeezed his hands into fists and gave in to that terrible, irrational urge: to beg the users for protection over these ISOs.

Tron didn’t get it, really, the animosity Clu had toward them. A program was a program. Perhaps the base code was different, but did that matter? Each ISO had a name, just like each Basic. A name, an identity, the ability to love someone, and be proud of something, and--

\-- _Users._

Tron stumbled back against the truck.

_Users, this hurts._

The ground was shifting, his insides trying to trade places. Quickly, he gripped the door handle, trying to steady his balance. 

Through the surging static came a ping.

_CYRUS-VDK-901009 >> You feeling all right there, program? _

Tron gave him a thumbs up.

Truth was, he wasn’t feeling remotely close to all right, and Cyrus’ constant worry wasn’t making it much better. He stared numbly at the truck, at the blurring figures of the ISOs going past, trying to guess at the number of ISOs left to unload. Halfway through. They had to be halfway through.

 _Just get through this_ , he ordered himself. _Just get through._

The world was turning sideways. He had to sit down, _now_ , before he collapsed or derezzed.

 _No_. He had to at least give the illusion of alertness.

Somehow, he held himself up. 

“Tron.” Cyrus was standing in front of him. “Are you okay?”

The ISOs were gone. Their contacts had disappeared into the shadows. It was just him and Cyrus, and the cold, cold air.

“The exchange is done.” Cyrus’ tone suggested this wasn’t the first time he’d said this.

“Good work, program,” Tron sighed, and the world went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "It makes no damn sense! Compels me though."  
> \--Tron, talking about directives


	32. Code

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cyrus: "So it's all code?"  
> Me: "Always has been."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for the late update; sometimes life decides to turn itself inside out by the sleeves. Be assured, this story will not be left incomplete, come hell or high water.

In the moments after Tron collapsed, Cyrus stood frozen, but his mind raced ahead at a terrible pace. He had to close his eyes to get control.

 _Come on, Cyrus.  
_ _Stay calm.  
_ _Think._

He took a deep breath, dropped to the ground, and turned Tron over on his side, noting as he did so that Tron was still breathing. Good. The energy implant was embedded in the code just beneath his disc dock, and Cyrus knew what he would find even before he saw it.

Even so, the sight sent chills of fear down his spine.

“No.” Cyrus swallowed hard. “No…”

Circuitry that should’ve been light had become hollow trenches, and the scars held back by the healing chamber had returned, spidering outwards from the busted implant in jagged cracks, glistening with energy.

The implant had failed.

The sound of the crashing waves far below sucked into nothing; a distant roar like the one in the dream, until the only sound Cyrus could hear was his own breathing. 

_Why, Tron?_  
 _Why’d you let it get this bad?_  
 _For my benefit,_ Cyrus realized with a pang. _And for the revolution. Stubborn program doesn’t know when to quit, it’s baked into his code._

Cyrus could’ve kicked himself. He should’ve been paying closer attention to his leader, his fellow rebel. But he hadn’t. He’d been thinking about that stupid dream, trying to figure out what the box was, what the symbols meant, why the man wouldn’t turn around. All the while, Tron had been standing strong for him, bleeding energy into the empty air.

“Okay,” Cyrus whispered, aloud. “You’re okay. I will fix this. Yeah.” He inhaled and it was sharp, involuntary. “It’ll be okay. Somehow.” 

He touched Tron’s back, and feverish heat radiated from the injury. 

“Somehow.”

He closed his eyes, and thought of glowdots, of hexagons lining the pool down in the ISO hideout, shifting from blue to red with just a simple twist of the hexcode. He thought of Ram teaching the security team how to break through the permissions barrier of a Recognizer. 

The waves rushed in the distance, keeping time to the beat of fingers on keys. The man in the dream.

Somehow -- Cyrus didn’t know how -- it made sense.

He knew the algorithm, the step-by-step remediation plan, he just needed to make himself move.

 _If you don’t move now, the maintenance programs will find you, Cyrus_ , he reasoned. _You cannot allow that._

He shook himself, took a deep breath, and steeled himself to the algorithm.

_Step 1: Remove the source of the error._

Cyrus ground his teeth. It would be just like removing a virus, like in the prison in Purgos. Except. This wasn’t a virus. This was a rotting energy implant. His virus resistant code wouldn’t help. He didn’t have the touch of a medic to perform a clean removal. Users only knew what further damage he’d cause to Tron’s code in the process.

Users. Should he go for a medic?

He longed to do so, but he didn’t know his way around Argon, couldn’t risk leaving Tron alone, and definitely couldn’t risk revealing his identity to some random medic. The Occupation would be on their tail in an instant.

Something moved, something on Tron’s back. Cyrus’ eyes focused in an instant. It was Tron’s shell, pieces of it, flickering like static.

“Do it, Cyrus,” he said, aloud. “You have no choice.”

Forcing his panic aside, Cyrus pressed his hands on either side of the affected area, and resisted the urge to pull back instantly. It was burning to the touch. He grit his teeth, trying to ignore the stinging crumbling of voxels around his fingers as he pressed harder into the code. 

Because it was, in the end, just code. It was all code. 

Code, code, code. The word was everywhere, so deeply entangled within the speech of the Grid, it was nearly invisible. No one really thought about it, it was code, plain and simple. The stuff that stuff was made of.

But code, he knew, could be manipulated. Only the users could spin code into being, but programs, limited extensions of their users, could shape code according to their directive. Cyrus thought of Able’s repair lectures, hushed conversations in Clu’s fortress, Yori’s hands dancing over her simulations. It was all just code, just hexagons lining the energy pool.

Tron was out cold, and did not make a sound or movement as Cyrus wrapped his fingers around the implant, and began to lift it free.

 _Easy does it_ , Cyrus thought, biting the inside of his cheek. This was just like removing that awful virus from the guard’s head. Slowly, carefully, little by little.

Finally, it was out, blackened and slippery with energy corrosion. Cyrus scanned the area for viruses, and was relieved to find none. The circuit lines at the edge of the damage were flaring red, angry, as Tron’s system automatically tried to fight back against the unknown hand.

_Step 2: Replace the implant._

No way could Tron make it without one. Already, the empty darkness was spreading outward across his back, pushing back against the red line.

“And neither of us bothered to bring an extra implant,” Cyrus muttered. “Excellent foresight all around.” Well, that was fine. He’d just have to make one. He’d fudged things in the past and made it through, he’d just have to do it again and get lucky. Pushing away the thought that this was Tron, a living program, and not something one should mess around with, Cyrus held the implant up and stared at it. He took in its shape, visualizing the layers, stretching his mind to find connections.

It hit him all at once, obvious enough to be laughable. The thing was the exact shape and size as the second engine cylinder of a lightcycle -- users, the devices even had the same function. Well; more or less -- the second cylinder sat in the middle of the engine, and ferried energy out to three channels which led out to the rest of the ’cycle. Cyrus took off his disc, calling up the memory of Able’s blueprints during the apprenticeship.

“Hang in there,” Cyrus said, though he knew Tron couldn’t hear him.

Tron gave no response.

Cyrus retrieved his lightcycle from the side door of the vehicle and rezzed it, losing his balance in the sudden increase in weight, and falling to the slick road. His knees cracked against the ground, but he hardly felt it, hardly felt a thing. All that mattered now was that second cylinder.

Derezzing the layers of code, one by one, Cyrus reached the engine at the heart of the lightcycle. He reached into the engine, numb to the sharp burn of compressed energy, and ripped out the second cylinder. 

Pivoting to Tron as the vehicle sparked and flickered, he picked up his disc again. 

“Where is it…” His fingers were slipping on the disc, and it was taking too much time, too much time, all of this was taking too long. “Where… where…” 

_There_. The memory in Ram’s fortress, when he held the energy implant for the first time. 

Cyrus froze the image there and gripped the cylinder with both hands, wearing the code down with his thumbs until its external shape matched the wireframe he held in his memory, trying not to dwell on the fact that he (DIRECTIVE == VIRUS DETECTION/REMEDIATION) was shaping code, shaping code like a mechanic (DIRECTIVE == RESTORATION). It was difficult, it took every bit of concentration within him, but the level of effort hardly mattered. He was still manipulating code like a mechanic, like a sim program, like--

Like a user.

Cyrus shook his head hard, and pushed the cylinder into Tron’s back. This was no time for philosophy. He had to save Tron.

The makeshift implant fizzled around the edges as it merged with Tron’s shell. Light seeped through the circuitry once more, and the static flickered out in bursts. Once the surface was ridged but unbroken, Cyrus sat back, holding his breath, waiting for the inevitable deresolution.

It never came.

Cyrus waited, paralyzed, counting to ten over and over and over again, until he was absolutely certain Tron wasn’t going to dissolve in front of him.

_Step 3: Get to a real medic._

The rush from the risky operation still ran hot through Cyrus’ circuits, and lifting Tron into the passenger’s seat was an easy matter.

He activated the engine and began moving back through the tunnel of gloom. As he drove out from under the bridge, he had to squint against the brighter blue of the open Grid. A wave of sudden fatigue hit him. He noticed the awful ringing in his head, and the weight of his arms, threatening to drag his fingers off the steering wheel. 

He should be freaking out, in panic and celebration. He’d just performed the work of a medic and an engineer, with no prior training. He’d operated outside his programming. It was all code, and he’d bent it to his will.

 _Don’t get too excited_ , Cyrus told himself, glancing at the unconscious program riding shotgun. _You don’t know how successful you were. He might still derezz yet._ He forced his mind from the topic, longing desperately to get back to Purgos, to the Resistance, to light and life and the usual prospects. 

Cyrus squeezed the steering wheel harder. He should be freaking out.

But all he could see was the road, all he could feel was the rattling of the vehicle as it moved over the ground.

He had to stay the course.

\--

They were a few minutes from the hideout entrance when Tron moved, shifting in his seat. He opened his good eye, fixing Cyrus in an impressive glare. Then he flinched, screwing both eyes tightly shut. “Oh, _glitch_.” 

“Tron!” Cyrus exclaimed, twisting one side of his mouth upwards in a weak smile. “You’re awake! How you feeling?”

Tron gave an answering growl.

“That’s to be expected,” Cyrus said. “Your implant went bad. You really ought to go to a medic more often.”

“Feels like it’s… it’s working now,” Tron muttered, all his words slurring together.

“Yeah, that’s because I replaced it.”

“ _Replaced_ it.” 

“Mhm.”

“With what?” There was a note of panic under the slow weariness of his speech. “You… you brought a spare?”

“I found a spare.”

“You found one?” Tron opened his eye wider. “Where? Were you seen?”

“No.”

“You.” Tron sighed. “Didn’t find one. Liar.” 

“I found an appropriate substitute.”

“What’d you do?”

“Don’t worry about it. It’ll hold up until we get back.”

“CYRUS-VDK-901009.” Tron straightened up as much as he could. “You tell me… what the hell is in my back… before… I _derezz_ you.”

“Before you derezz me,” Cyrus repeated, smiling. “Now I’m scared.”

“Answer me, you glitching… bit-brained… Beta.”

“It’s a lightcycle cylinder.”

Tron gave a questioning growl.

“I made some adjustments.”

“You’re gonna charge me like a lightcycle?”

“No, I’m--well--yes. Basically. But it’ll work! The central mechanism? It’s the same. Besides, you don’t have a choice.”

“Hmm.” Tron sagged back against the seat. “Users help us all.” 

As they went through the city, Cyrus noticed some flyers flashing boldly against the walls of an overpass. He slowed down the vehicle and barely caught their message; something about an anti-ISO demonstration taking place in Purgos Central Square. “Hey, Tron, you see that?” Cyrus began, but he glanced sideways and realized Tron was slumped against the door of the vehicle once more.

“Hey.” Cyrus reached over and punched Tron’s shoulder. “Tron, we’re almost there. Stay awake.”

“Oh, get derezzed,” Tron mumbled.

Cyrus laughed. “How’s the implant treatin‘ ya?”

“Terribly,” Tron said. “You can scratch… _‘medic’_ off the list for… mmm. Possible directives.”

“You’re welcome,” Cyrus said with a smile. Turning back to the road, he spotted a few more of the anti-ISO signs lining the side of a building. The demonstration was to happen in a microcycle. He narrowed his eyes.

_One micro, huh? Oh, I’ll be sure to stop by._


	33. Meanwhile, on the Edge of the System...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now, there's a name we haven't heard in a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember those energy pulses from chapter 26?

It was dark in the meeting room, deep below the surface, and though it was likely no unwanted parties were listening, Ram and Able spoke in low voices.

Yori looked around the room, searching desperately for something to hold onto, to stay  _ here _ in the present, and listen. The three of them had, suddenly and violently, fallen into the roles of resistance leaders. There was a lot riding on that. Yori had led projects before, of course, but they were architectural projects, projects of design and innovation. This was different. She had to be at her best. She had to pay attention.

Above her, a little flash of green caught her eye.

The glowdots fixed to the ceiling, by Ram’s request, were green. Occasionally, one of them would flicker with a staticky burst, sending out green light through unused circuit lines around the glowdot. Instabilities in the wireframe, Yori reasoned.

Quickly, she tore her eyes away, sitting up straighter, trying to anchor herself to the discussion. Glitch, her mind was all over the place. Ever since Tron and Cyrus had left for Argon, a sense of foreboding had risen inside her, dread that defied all logic.

_ Yori, you have no evidence to worry over, _ she reminded herself. When they last spoke, Tron stood tall, spoke clearly, and insisted he was okay. But that was his way. He was always okay. He was always so  _ glitching _ okay, even when deprived of energy, tortured by memories of what had happened in the depths of Clu’s prison, missing half his face—

“Yori.” Able’s voice, low and kind.

She lifted her head from her hands, and smiled at Able. “Sorry,” she said. “I was listening. I’m just a little tired.”

“You okay?”

“Maybe we should break for some energy,” Ram cut in.

“No,” Yori insisted sharply, accessing her auxiliary memories, catching what the others had been talking about during her mental tangent. “Go on. You were talking about energy surges.”

“Right.” Able steepled his fingers. “Reports have been coming in steadily from our distant contacts, about energy surges way, way out in the Outlands.”

“Location?”

“Locations are randomized. They’ve found no clear pattern, but they were able to get a team out there and investigate. They found a bunch of burned up wireframes.”

“Wireframes?” Now Yori was listening. “Of what?”

“Most of them were damaged beyond recognition. But the report did say there were a lot of large, cylindrical bases.” Able gave Yori a knowing look. “The code inside was layered with high density.”

“To handle a high amount of energy!” Yori exclaimed.

“Mhm.”

“Wait, wait,” Ram said. “What’s that mean? You mechanic types care to translate for the rest of us?”

_ Yes _ , Bit beeped from its position on Ram’s shoulder.

Yori jumped. She’d almost forgotten the Bit was there. “How big were the cylinders?” she asked.

“1,024 megapixels, on average,” Able said. “Sound familiar?”

Sound familiar? She’d known that number since compilation. Her entire directive revolved around it. “The digitization portal,” she said. 

“Oh,” Ram said. His eyes grew wide. “Oh.”

Yori snapped her fingers. “Able, hypothesis.”

“Program, I don’t have a clue.”

Yori leaned forward. “Ram. What’s your guess?”

“I don’t want to hedge my bets just yet—not enough evidence—”

“Your best guess. Come on.”

“Big energy surges, far beyond the realm of civilization? Charred remains of wireframes left in their wake, yet when anyone goes to check it out, there’s no one there? No one? Not even a  _ trace _ ?” Ram shrugged, staring into empty space. Then, his lips moved, forming one word, one name, a name that sent a shiver down Yori’s spine. 

She shook her head, running a hand back through her hair. “No. Ram, there is no way.”

Ram shrugged again. “With Flynn? Who knows. He’s defied the impossible before. He jumped into the MCP and lived, Yori.  _ The MCP _ .” Ram shook his head. “So… so I think there’s a chance.”

Yori sat back, staring up at the ceiling. “Flynn is dead,” she said, quietly. “He has to be. Why else hasn’t he come back to us yet? Why hasn’t he done anything to try and stop this?” Unwanted, the memory of Tron in the energy chamber burst into her mind. Programs beaten and arrested in the streets. Clu’s face plastered over everything, everything, his voice, a suffocating presence over the cities. “Where is he?” Her voice was sharp-edged, tight, ready to break. “Where is he?  _ Why has it taken him so long? _ ”

“Well, see, you know, I’ve been asking myself that same question,” Ram said, quiet, thoughtful.

Yori took a deep breath. 

“Why hasn’t he come back for us yet? Has he abandoned us? No. No, I don’t think so. Clu… Clu’s smart, you know. He’s really smart. Flynn designed him to be like… well, another Flynn. Their minds are similar. So, stands to reason that whatever grand schemes Flynn’s cooked up, Clu will anticipate them because they’re exactly the kind of schemes Clu would do, were he in Flynn’s position. See, Clu’s got it easy. He doesn’t need to be proactive. All he has to do is think of what Flynn would do next, and counter. Meanwhile Flynn’s out there, all alone, wracking his mind on a new way to get in, losing over and over again to a program with his own face, trying not to despair completely.” 

Yori looked down at the table. Of course.

“But I don’t… I don’t think he’s given up yet. Not Flynn. He cares about us, Yori. This place, the Grid… he cares. He’ll keep fighting. And we owe it to him to keep believing that.”

“You’re right,” Yori said. “We should try and contact him. That should be our next plan of action.”

“Well, now,” said Able. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Flynn’s still out there, I have no doubt. But us trying to contact him? That might just cause more of a problem.”

“Explain.”

“If those wireframes are what we think they are, half-busted IO towers, then it could be he’s trying to find a way to escape the Grid altogether, take down Clu from the outside. I don’t wanna interfere with that.”

“Or maybe it’s a diversion,” Yori said. “To keep Clu busy.”

“It could be any number of things,” Ram said. “Whatever it is, Yori, I’m with you. I think we  _ should  _ interfere. Remember, whatever Flynn’s planning, it’s likely Clu already knows. If we were to interfere, we’re throwing a random variable into the mix. Clu’s calculation wouldn’t be so easy.”

“I see,” Able said. He sat back in his chair, nodding, pursing his lips. “Well, then. Just how are we gonna go about contacting Flynn?”

Yori looked across the table at Ram, bouncing in his seat, green circuits flaring to life. His smile was contagious. “You have a plan, Ram?” she asked.

Ram grinned even wider. “Well—” 

At that moment, there were footsteps outside in the hall. Someone pounded on the door, and Yori leaped to her feet, prepared to draw her disc.

“We got company,” Able said.

“Able! Yori!” cried the muffled voice from behind the door. "Ram, let me in!"

“It’s a friend,” said Ram. He pressed a square of activation code on the table, and the door slid open.

A data courier program burst into the room. “They’re back!” he cried. “Tron and Cyrus! They’re back!”

The names jolted Yori out of her seat. “We’ll reconvene later,” she called over her shoulder, already at the door, and moving down the hallway, running through the labyrinthine halls of the base with the words echoing in her head.  _ Tron and Cyrus _ . Not just one or the other. She pushed past programs and dodged around corners until the loading dock was in view, and she saw the looming outline of the truck, and the swarming team of rebels, and Cyrus, and  _ there he was,  _ Tron, and Tron was leaning heavily on two other programs to stay upright, but he was upright, he was upright, he was 

_ alive _

And she made her way forward, forcing herself to walk instead of run. She wanted to descend on Tron in a frantic storm of worry, but crowds tended to part for programs in control.

He looked up and spotted her, and his good eye brightened somewhat, a slow smile spreading across his face at the sight of her. 

Yori, however, was in no mood to smile. “Greetings, program,” she said, raising one eyebrow, a tidal wave of outraged lecturing held behind her cool expression. The Grid needed a protector, not a martyr -- but there would be time to lecture him later, when he wasn’t lagging like an overbooked I/O tower.

Tron’s smile was transforming into a grimace of pained sheepishness. He managed the word: “Yori.”

“Hi,” she said, putting a hand on her hip, looking him up and down. His hair was a mess, his face was drawn and tired, but there was no damage on his shell, no evidence of violence.

“Excuse me, Yori, but we’ve gotta take Tron here to the medical ward,” explained one of the other programs, needlessly. “The kid said his energy implant was acting up.”

“Uh-huh.” Fighting the sudden urge to smile, to run forward and kiss that stubborn, idiotic piece of code on his glitching forehead (glitch, she was supposed to be  _ mad _ at him for these self-sacrificing antics), Yori nodded. “I’ll be in to visit you shortly, program. We need to talk.”

“Ooh,” chorused both programs holding up Tron. “Sounds like you’ve got some explaining to do.”

As they struggled away towards the medical ward, Yori was looking ahead. She owed someone a thank you. She found Cyrus sitting against the back of the vehicle, staring into space, completely still except for the drumming of his fingers against the bumper. “Hey, kid,” she said. “Welcome back.”

“Yori,” he said. His eyes focused, but he did not look at her. Poor program. He was probably exhausted. 

“How’d the mission go?” Yori asked, making a mental note to chide Tron about scaring the mentee.

Cyrus shrugged. “Successful. We got every ISO to the checkpoint, and we both made it back… relatively… unscathed.”

“Well done,” Yori said.

Cyrus looked up.

“I mean it. Well done, Cyrus. Thank you for getting him back in one piece.”

He smiled, slow at first, and then bright all at once, and waved her off, ducking his head. “He would’ve done the same for me.”

“Yes, he would have.”

And Cyrus’ smile was gone, the clouds coming back in over his eyes. He rubbed his nose. 

Yori stepped closer. Something was wrong, deeper than plain, old tiredness. Given the circumstances, and the program in question, it could be anything. Theorizing would get her nowhere. “Cyrus, are you all right?” Yori asked.

He flinched, as though shaken from sleep mode. “Huh?”

“What’s bugging you?”

“Oh. Nothing. Just need some energy. It’s been a while.” He pushed himself up from the vehicle, drifting towards the front of the loading dock, towards the outside, away from the base that had a much higher probability of containing the energy he claimed to need.

Yori watched him go, her eyes narrowing. The lecture she planned to deliver to Tron was quickly changing in topic. 


End file.
